Medical Doctoral Researchers
MD Excellence Program
The Faculty of Medicine and the Graduate School of Life Sciences offer a number of fellowships to current medical students, designed to support medical students in pursuing an experimental or clinical epidemiological doctoral thesis.
More information about pursuing a doctoral project can be found on the Medical Faculty website (please click 'Promotionsstipendium' and see the point 'Promotionsstipendien im Rahmen der Graduiertenschule für Lebenswissenschaften')
Please click here for more details of the fellowship, as well as for information regarding your initial application.
Interested students should submit their application as one PDF document via email to Luise Lesch at the GSLS.
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Please note the following application deadlines:
01.03., 01.06., 01.09. and 01.12. of each year. Please submit your documents three months in advance as it requires some time for them to be evaluated.
Medical students in receipt of this fellowship should spend 9 months working full time on their research, must register with the GSLS, and must take part in a specially adapted, structured doctoral programme. The programme of mandatory and elective courses is designed to support and further the students' scientific- and transferable skills set, and a three-person thesis committee ensures that students benefit from inter-disciplinary expertise and backgrounds through regular committee meetings.
Regulations governing the set-up of the thesis committee:
- At least three supervisors
- Primary and secondary supervisors have to be GSLS members from different departments/clinics
- One GSLS member supervisor (first or second supervisor) has to hold a permanent professorship of the faculty of medicine (University of Würzburg)
- A minimum of three different departments should be represented
- Feel free to add an external supervisor (e.g. collaboration partner)
We strongly encourage you to strictly adhere to the mentioned requirements, or contact us in advance with the names of your potential thesis committee. We can then verify if the committee would be valid. By adopting this approach, you can proactively avoid the inconvenience of having to later modify your committee due to its lack of validity.
For registration in the GSLS we require the following two forms:
- Application form
- Confirmation by the thesis committee
The structured training programme consists of:
- Regular research group and literature seminars
- Regular programme or section seminars (e.g. institute seminar)
- Regular participation in the Interdisciplinary Seminar for Medical Doctoral Researchers (monthly)
- Participation in the course Good Scientific Practice, offered 2 - 3 times per year by the GSLS (mandatory)
- Lectures
- Methods courses
- Transferable skills courses (click here to see the GSLS transferable skills programme)
- Research stay
- Start-up and bi-annual meeting with the thesis committee
- Participation in at least one retreat or summer school
- Active participation (poster or talk) in at least one international conference
- At least one co-authorship publication in a peer-reviewed, international journal
Pages for the study book can be downloaded here.
Guidelines for Good Scientific Practice can be viewed here. All members of the University of Würzburg are obliged to adhere to the Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice and Procedures Concerning Scientific Misconduct.
Medical students in receipt of this scholarship are also eligible to apply for an up to €500 travel fellowship from the GSLS. This fellowship is designed to financially support students regarding travel costs and entrance fees for conferences, summer schools, courses outside Würzburg and research stays in labs outside Würzburg. For more information on how to apply for a travel fellowship, please click here.
Please note that we are only able to admit medical students to the GSLS who are in receipt of the scholarship described above.
Should you have any questions regarding the structured programme, or any questions once you have been awarded a scholarship, please contact: Heike Schrenk: +49 931 31 84079 or Katharina Bötsch: +49 931 31 86595
For questions prior to the submission of your application, please contact Luise Lesch +49 931 31 89325
Office Hours: Tues - Fri 9:00 Uhr - 12:30 Uhr
