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Graduate School of Life Sciences

Medical Doctoral Researchers

Becoming a GSLS Medical Doctoral Researcher

The way into our structured medical doctoral training program is a three-step process:

  1. You need to apply for the MD Excellence Program at the following application deadlines: 01.03., 01.06., 01.09. and 01.12. of each year.
  2. You need to be admitted into the GSLS - after successful application.
  3. You need to be enrolled at our university - this can only happen in Sept/Oct or March/April of each year.

Admission to the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS)

You can apply for admission to the GSLS at 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.

To join our Medical Doctoral Training Program, you must meet the following requirements:

  • Have a designated primary supervisor
  • Meet the academic admission criteria
  • Successfully apply and gain admission to the MD Excellence Program

1. Finding a Primary Supervisor

Your primary supervisor is the principal investigator (PI) who chairs your thesis committee and guides you through your MD. They provide a suitable research environment of your project. Your supervisor must be a GSLS member.

How to Find a Supervisor

  • Contact GSLS members directly: A list of members can be found here..
  • Browse our research section: Identify groups that match your research interests.
  • Check open positions: Available PhD projects are listed on our open position page and on the the medical faculty open position page.

2. Meet the academic admission criteria

Academic Qualifications

To be eligible, you must have successfully completed one of the following examinations:

  • Erstes Staatsexamen (First State Examination)
  • Zahnärztliche Vorprüfung (Dental Preliminary Examination)

International Degrees

  • Not all foreign degrees are considered equivalent to the required German degrees.
  • The International Office assesses degree equivalency. Due to staff shortages, the International Office is experiencing delays in processing applications.
  • If you would like to have your certificates evaluated independently, you are welcome to contact the ZAB (Central Office for Foreign Education).
  • Applicants from Mongolia, Vietnam, or China must present an APS certificate.

Language Requirements

You must have strong active knowledge of English or German.

The GSLS office will review your international documents for compliance. We strongly recommend contacting gsls-med@uni-wuerzburg.de before engaging in any time-consuming or costly activities related to your application. Reaching out to the GSLS in advance is also important to clarify whether admission would be possible. Please only travel to Germany once you have received official confirmation of your acceptance into the GSLS.

3. Sucessfully apply and gain admission to the MD Excellence Program

Medical Doctoral Scholarships – Call for Applications

The Medical Faculty and the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS) offer scholarships to support medical doctoral theses. Each scholarship amounts to €5,028 in total. Additionally, travel grants are available for active participation in international conferences and research stays.

Eligibility Requirements

To apply for a scholarship, applicants must:

  • Conduct an experimental or clinical-epidemiological doctoral thesis, typically requiring nine months of full-time work during a leave semester. The results must be published in at least one peer-reviewed international journal with the doctoral candidate as an author.
  • Submit the application before starting the experimental or clinical-epidemiological research. Please allow at least three months for processing.
  • Participate in the structured doctoral programs, including the mandatory interdisciplinary seminar for medical doctoral candidates.

Application Deadlines

Applications can be submitted to the GSLS on:
March 1 | June 1 | September 1 | December 1

Please click here for more details of the fellowship, as well as for information regarding your initial application.

Selection Process

The selection is conducted by at least three independent university professors. If an application is rejected, the decision is final, and no reasons for rejection will be disclosed.

Interested students should submit their application as one PDF document via email to Luise Lesch at the GSLS.

Application Process for the GSLS

Step 1: Fulfill Basic Requirements

Before starting your application to the GSLS, you must:

  • Have a confirmed primary supervisor and thesis comittee

  • Sucessfully apply and gain admission to the MD Excellence Program

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.

Step 2: Pre-Application via Open Campus

  1. Create an account on our online platform Open Campus to access the pre-application form. You can find the homepage of Open Campus here.
  2. Complete the pre-application form in Open Campus.
  3. After submission, a PDF document for your primary supervisor will be generated.
  4. Print the PDF, have it signed by your primary supervisor, and upload it back to Open Campus.

Once your pre-application is received and reviewed by the GSLS office, you will be granted access to the full application form in Open Campus. You will receive an email notification when this happens.

Step 3: Full Application Form

In the full application form, you will be required to provide details about:

  • Your previous academic background
  • Your planned doctoral project
  • Your Thesis Committee

Important: Your Thesis Committee must be complete before submitting the application form.

Thesis Committee Requirements

 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 guidance on committee composition, contact the GSLS office .

Final Admission to the GSLS

After submitting your completed full application, the GSLS will review your documents and contact you.

To finalize your admission, you must inform us by email at gsls-med@uni-wuerzburg.de about:

  • When you will start your project
  • When you will take your semester off