CiM IMPRS-MBM Joint Graduate Program 2018 | 16 Life Science PhD Positions

ext-align: center;">CiM IMPRS-MBM Joint Graduate Program 2018 | 16 Life Science PhD Positions

CiM IMPRS-MBM Joint Graduate Program 2018 official notification is out. There are 16 PhD Positions in Life & Natural Sciences available for candidates of any nationality to apply. The program is starting in October of this year. Check out all of the details on the same and more below:

This call expires in :

 

CELLS IN MOTION (CiM) GRADUATE SCHOOL
and the
INTERNATIONAL MAX PLANCK RESEARCH SCHOOL – MOLECULAR BIOMEDICINE (IMPRS-MBM)
Joint Graduate Program

CiM-IMPRS PhD Program:

The program is jointly run by the University of Münster and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine. The CiM Graduate School of the “Cells in Motion” Cluster of Excellence and the International Max Planck Research School – Molecular Biomedicine were merged to form one graduate program.

The Ph.D. program offers cutting edge science and teaching in Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences with a strong emphasis on Imaging. Although the focus of the program lies on biomedical research there is also a strong demand for graduates of computer sciences, mathematics, chemistry and physics to work on new ways of image acquisition and analysis as well as on novel labeling methods.

Our PhD projects range from the analysis of basic cellular processes to clinical translation with a strong focus on state-of-the-art imaging. CiM-IMPRS PhD students study cellular behaviour in cells, tissues, animal models or patients. Projects can also focus on the development of mathematical models or new imaging-related techniques and compounds.

We offer outstanding research in high-profile laboratories as well as excellent scientific and “soft-skill” training aimed to strengthen the PhD students’ competences for their future careers. Each year up to 16 PhD students will receive fellowships (tax-free) or work contracts (for more details go to “Application”). More PhD positions financed by work contracts may be offered depending on availability. There are no tuition fees.
We offer support with visas, accommodation and administrative matters.

Eligibility:

CiM-IMPRS is open for highly qualified and motivated students of any nationality. We also encourage students who have obtained a Master’s degree at Münster University to apply for a CiM-IMPRS fellowship. Please go to Application for more information.

The next term will commence in October.

How to Apply:

The program is now OPEN for new applications (deadline 13 April 2018). For more information go to Application.

CiM-IMPRS is a joint graduate program formed by the merger of the International Max Planck Research School IMPRS-MBM and the CiM Graduate School of the “Cells in Motion” Cluster of Excellence at the University of Münster. The program is jointly run by the University of Münsterand the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine. The program is a continuation and extension of the former CEDAD-IMPRS program.

The Ph.D. program offers excellent research and teaching in Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences with a strong emphasis on Imaging. The program is open to graduates of the biological sciences, chemistry, mathematics, computer sciences and physics.

Important notes:

Please apply to this graduate program only if you find projects that are of interest to you.

Applications can only be submitted via our online system. The system is available during the above mentioned application period only. The deadline for applications is 13 April 2018.

References should be uploaded until 15 April 2018. Additions/corrections (see below) can be submitted until late September.

The time between selection for interviews and the interview symposium is rather short. If you need a passport to travel to Germany and you don’t have it yet, please already arrange for getting one or make sure that obtaining passport and visa can be done between 3 May and 21 June 2018. Please inspect the webpage of your German embassy.

Please refrain from contacting our Faculty Members and PhD students by e-mail or phone! During the last application periods some of them have received an extremely high number of messages and calls which is a real burden. Please send an e-mail to the office instead. If you have questions or encounter problems with the application procedure please don’t hesitate to contact the coordinator, Prof. Martin Wild, by e-mail. Due to the high number of e-mails we usually receive we can only answer those questions that are not addressed in the information given below!

Requirements:

Applicants must hold a Master’s degree, or equivalent (e.g. German Diploma), in life or natural sciences (e.g. biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, physics, chemistry, pharmacy or related fields), in mathematics or computer sciences. Applicants with a state examination in pharmacy can be admitted to work on pharmaceutical/chemical projects. The date of award of the Master’s (or diploma, state examination) degree must not be more than 4 years ago (i.e. 4 years before the above-mentioned application deadline).

Applications are also welcome if the required degree has not yet been awarded by the time of application. However, it has to be awarded before fellowships commence in October.

Adequate English proficiency: Applicants who are not native English speakers should demonstrate an adequate competence of the English language by one of the following options: 1) acceptable results in an internationally recognized test (e.g. TOEFL, IELTS) or 2) proven higher education in English or 3) reasonably long stay in an English speaking country or 4) simply demonstrating your English language abilities during presentations and interviews in Münster. Please note: Although an English proficiency test (TOEFL, IELTS) is not required it is very important that you CAN communicate well enough in spoken and written English. Knowledge of the German language is not required.

Students from Münster are also welcome to apply. Please note: Students who are already working in a group of a CiM-IMPRS member (see list of members on this page under “Faculty”) are eligible for a fellowship only if they will join a different CiM-IMPRS group for their PhD. If you have questions concerning this rule please contact us by e-mail.

Application Procedure:

Overview

1) Write your application in English language (application form, short curriculum vitae (CV), transcripts and certificates). In your online application you name 1-3 potential CiM-IMPRS groups in which you would like to work.
2) Identify and inform 2 academic teachers/supervisors who can send reference letters (also see 4).
3) Submit your application (online). You will receive a registration code.
4) Ask the 2 referees to submit reference letters using the registration code.
5) We may ask you to have a Skype interview with us between 25 April and 2 May 2018.
6) Interviews in Münster (3.5 days, obligatory, we pay for travel and accommodation).

Application procedure in detail:

Note: 
All submitted transcripts and certificates must be in English or German. Certified copies of documents are not mandatory at the time of submission. However, all relevant documents have to get certified upon acceptance to the program.

Your application will consist of 2 pdf files only. The first file will include application form and curriculum vitae (CV); the second will include transcripts, record of study and certificates. Please do not send zip-files. Further down you find information on how to create and combine pdf files.

We are unable to consider applications that are incomplete or do not fulfil the formal criteria described above.

Written application (in English language):

1. Read the information given on our program on the CiM-IMPRS website. Identify between 1 and 3 CiM-IMPRS groups in which you would like to do your PhD. To this end please consult the description of projects and the group links on our webpage. You will have to name the heads of these 1-3 groups in your online application. If you get invited to the interview symposium you will have interviews with theses group leaders. Some groups have subgroups according to their websites. If you would like to work in a particular subgroup please name the head of the subgroup in the comment field of your online application. Do not apply to this program if there is no group you are really interested in!
   Please note that there are several groups that cannot take any students this year (marked with “No positions via CiM-IMPRS in 20..” on our webpage). THESE GROUPS CANNOT BE CHOSEN!! Do NOT choose: Adams, Bartscherer, Burger, Fallnich, Greber, Haufe, Kiefer, Meuth, Püschel, Schmidt, Schöler, Schwab, Siekmann, Storkebaum, Wirth, Zarbock. This leaves 35 groups to choose from.
   
2. Download the CiM-IMPRS application form from this webpage (see downloads on left hand sidebar) and complete it offline. Convert it into a pdf-file (information on conversion into pdf see below).
3. Write a short, one-page curriculum vitae, convert it into a pdf-file and combine it with the application form into one pdf-file. Some information on your CV will be identical to that in the application form. Don’t worry.
4. Collect your official transcripts or records of study which should document your academic work in detail (list of courses attended; grades and credit points if applicable) and your certificates.
   Important: PLEASE START YOUR FILE WITH YOUR MASTER or DIPLOMA CERTIFICATE (and corresponding transcripts).
   Certificates should include the relevant university examinations (e.g. Master’s and Bachelor’s degree, or German Diplom and Vordiplom). You can submit provisional certificates and include final certificates later, when they become available, as an addition to your application (see paragraph “Additions/Corrections” below).
   If available, please also include your final certificate of secondary school education which gives the right of admission to higher eduction (e.g. Abitur, Matura, or equivalent). The certificate should show individual grades. Include an explanation of the grading system. If schools in your country don’t issue such certificates, don’t worry. It will have no consequences on your application.
   If you have a certificate for an English language test (e.g.TOEFL, IELTS) please add it here. If you don’t have it, don’t worry. It is not mandatory (see above)!
5. All these transcripts/records of study/certificates have to be submitted as a single pdf-file. You may scan the documents (black and white scans are sufficient and reduce the size of the files), convert each of them into a pdf-file and, finally, combine them into one file. Please do NOT include pages on which all wording is vertical (we inspect applications on the monitor!).
6. Identify two academic teachers/supervisors who can send reference letters for your application. You will be asked to submit their e-mail addresses electronically with your application. We may contact the referees directly if we need more information. If you cannot name two academic teachers/supervisors, please contact the coordinator by e-mail. We will find a solution.
   
7. Submit your application online: Please go to the following web page: 
   ONLINE SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS (open during the application period)
8. There you will be asked to transfer basic data from your application form into the webpage (copy-paste), to name your referees (incl. e-mail addresses) and to name 1-3 CiM-IMPRS groups of interest. Please note that there are several groups that cannot take any students this year (marked with “No positions via CiM-IMPRS in 20…” on our webpage). THESE GROUPS CANNOT BE CHOSEN!!!
   

1. Upload 1) your completed application form/CV and 2) your transcripts/record of study/certificates file. Please note: large files of over 17 MB sometimes cause submission problems. In that case please reduce the size of the respective pdf.
2. You will receive an automatic confirmation of your application. This e-mail will contain your registration code which you will need for further steps. Please note: The e-mail address of the server which sends the confirmation and other e-mails starts with lotus1/GWDG/de@lotus…… Be careful not to treat these e-mails as spam. This has happened before! Look into your spam folder!
3. As soon as you have the registration code please ask the two referees to submit their reference letters to our online system. Please forward to the referees the details and your registration codegiven in your automatic confirmation. They will need them for submission of their references. In that confirmation e-mail the referees will be asked to download the reference request form from this website and to submit it to our server. Once they have uploaded their references you will be informed automatically. Make sure that we receive their references by 15 April! Our faculty members will start evaluating the applications on the next day. Hence, we cannot guarantee that references submitted later than 15 April are seen by the evaluators.
   

Skype interviews:

• If we cannot make a decision solely on the basis of the written application, we may ask you to have a brief Skype interview with the coordinator or one of our faculty members. Please be prepared that we may ask you for such an Skype interview between April 25th and May 2nd, 2018.

Interviews in Münster:

1. The CiM-IMPRS faculty will then select applicants for interviews in Münster. You will be informed about the decision no later than the date given above in the application schedule (selection for interviews). Participation in the symposium is mandatory. We will pay for your travel to the interview symposium in Münster (and back) as well as for your accommodation here. However, costs to obtain visas (visa fees and travel to embassies) are not covered.
2. Interview Symposium in Münster: The symposium consists of interviews (including a short presentation of your Master/Diploma thesis), meetings with potential supervisors and visits of groups/labs. You can book additional meetings and visits on site. In addition, the applicants will present their Master/Diploma work on posters whereas CiM-IMPRS groups will present posters with their projects. There will also be meetings with current students. On the last day of the symposium you will be asked to give a final updated list of 3 preferred groups/supervisors sorted by your priority.

Acceptance to the program:

A final decision on acceptance to the program will be made on the day after the interviews. You will be informed about our decision by e-mail. Successful applicants start their PhD projects on October 1st. If you wish, you can also start earlier. However, if you need a visa, please note that obtaining the visa may take several months.

Students working in a Max Planck group will get a work contract. Others will receive a tax-free fellowship of 1400-1468 € per month. More PhD positions financed by work contracts may be offered depending on availability. The income after deduction of tax and health insurance of work contracts and fellowships is similar and more than sufficient for living in Germany. There are no tuition fees, but PhD students have to register with the university with a contribution of ca. 50 € / month for which they receive a ticket for free public transport in Münster and North Rhine Westfalia (!) and the opportunity to apply for cheap student dormitories.

Additions/Corrections:

If you have additions (e.g. a final Master certificate) or important corrections (e.g. a new address) you can submit them electronically.
Simply change your file/files accordingly and submit BOTH, a new Application Form/CV file AND a new Transcripts/Record of study/Certificates file (even if only one file contains additions / corrections).
The new files will replace the old files! Submit your additions / corrections at:
SUBMISSION OF ADDITIONS / CORRECTIONS (open until September) 

Once again: the links for your application:

Online Submission of Applications (open during the application period)

Submission of Additions / Corrections (open until September)

Checklist for your application

1. Completed CiM-IMPRS Application Form
2. Curriculum vitae (1 page)
3. Transcripts, records of study. Don’t forget: Start your file with your Master certificate/documents.
4. Certificates: Master (or Diplom), Bachelor, secondary school education (only if available), English language test (if available)
5. Names and e-mail addresses of two academic teachers who can send reference letters
6. Names of 1-3 CiM-IMPRS groups in which you would like to do your PhD. Make sure that you do not choose groups that don not take students this year (see above).
7. Make sure that you can have a Skype interview with us in case we ask you for it.

View Notification

Editor’s Note: CiM IMPRS-MBM Joint Graduate Program 2018 admission notification, phd admission notification, phd positions, life sciences admissions, natural sciences admissions, phd life sciences notification. Check out the Newsletter – it is a free subscription service that you can avail by signing up for it just the once.