Information for Doctoral Students

Achieving a doctorate is your entry into an academic career. Stays abroad can be an important component of your own research at the FernUniversität: they promote knowledge exchange with foreign colleagues as well as your integration into the international research community in your field. In this sense, they are both professionally and personally rewarding. You will have the opportunity to make presentations and network at conferences, acquire valuable teaching experience at a partner university, attend a language course, or work in a lab or archive on the other side of the globe: you can tailor the duration and content of your stay abroad to suit your individual career planning as well as your academic interests and needs. Later, you can use the skills and competencies you have acquired in this way both inside and outside academia.

Important questions to ask when planning a trip abroad as part of your doctoral studies include:
- What goal(s) are you pursuing with your stay abroad (e.g., broadening your specialist knowledge, conducting research for your doctoral thesis, initiating or intensifying research contacts, adding another plus point to your CV)?
- How long should the trip last (how is it to be reconciled with official obligations, if applicable)?
- Where do you want to go? Do you already have contacts in the host country/university of your choice?
- What kind of lead time is required?
- What funding do you need (for instance, what kind of additional costs will you incur due to being in a foreign country? Will there be any conference/course fees)?
Taking part in international and/or overseas conferences or meetings is an important part of academic life for doctoral students. Conferences offer you the opportunity to boost your profile in the international academic community and to make others aware of your research interests, but also to establish valuable contacts, and to represent FernUniversität in front of an international audience. If you are interested in delivering a paper at a conference, funding is available, in particular through the Internal Research Funding Program.

Internal Research Funding Program (in German)

Contact:
- Florian Hilf
  Email: florian.hilf
Specialist courses include summer or winter schools offered by foreign universities, usually two-week intensive seminars on a wide variety of topics. You will find overviews of summer/winter schools offered in Europe and the USA on the Internet, but specialist courses are often (only) publicized on the website of the respective university. Funding for stays abroad to attend specialist courses is possible via “PROMOS Specialist Course.”
Foreign language skills are becoming increasingly indispensable in both doctoral studies and (academic) working life. Taking a language course in a country where the language is spoken promotes rapid and immersive learning. In addition to a large number of private organizers, many universities also offer language courses. The length can vary from a single week to several months. It is a good idea to stay with a host family or in a student dormitory. This will allow you to quickly establish contacts on-site and use the language in everyday life. Funding for stays abroad to attend language courses is possible via “PROMOS Language Courses.” You can find a lot of information about language courses abroad on the DAAD website.
- PROMOS Language Courses
- German Academic Exchange Service – Language Courses (in German)
Lecturers can make the most of the opportunity to teach at a foreign university for a limited period. This can provide unparalleled personal, professional, and didactically rewarding encounters with the academic and teaching systems of other countries. Whether this takes place in the context of a block seminar or an entire semester, a guest lectureship offers diverse opportunities for productive networking and enhancing your professional-pedagogical experience. If you are interested in a short-term guest lectureship, funding is available through the Erasmus+ Mobility for Teaching Staff (Higher Education) program.

Erasmus+ Mobility for Teaching Staff (Higher Education)
The aim of the Erasmus+ mobility program for continuing education and training is to provide staff with a chance to get to know another higher education institution, its structure, organization and working methods, to make new contacts and exchange experiences with colleagues in another country. Whether as part of an organized Staff Week or as individual job shadowing, the experience will enrich your own (career) path. You can also combine this with a mobility trip for teaching staff.

Erasmus+ Mobility for Continuing Education and Training
A research stay at a foreign university makes it possible to conduct research together and on-site with colleagues. It opens up a variety of opportunities: to meet potential academic partners, to facilitate the progress of a research project, or to network with other specialists in your field. A stay abroad to conduct a field study or an archival visit can also be especially helpful for your doctoral degree. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) offers a number of options for funding.

Scholarship database of the German Academic Exchange Service (in German only)
- Internal Research Funding (German)
- The Internal Research Funding Program provides, among other things, funding for contributions made by doctoral students at international conferences.
- Erasmus+ Staff Mobility
  The Erasmus+ program provides funds for staff visits for teaching as well as for continuing education and training purposes.
- PROMOS Scholarship Program
  Funding for language and specialist courses abroad for doctoral students.
- The Fulbright Doctoral Program (page in German)
  provides financial support for four- to six-month stays in the U.S. by German early career academics who are conducting a research project at a U.S. university or scientific institution.
- Further funding opportunities can be found, for example, in the database of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (in German).
The joint newsletter published by Research Services (Forschungsservice), International Office, Transfer Office (Transferbüro), and the Center for Learning and Innovation (ZLI) provides regular information on current calls for proposals (distributed via the dean’s offices).

Testimonials – Learning from Others

Group of people holding speech bubbles in front of their faces

Whether you plan to take a language or other specialist course abroad or to avail yourself of one of the staff mobility programs for teaching and continuing education, be inspired by the reports posted by other doctoral students about their experiences.

Testimonials (in German)

Improving Your Foreign Language Skills at Home

If you would like to speak English with your peers in a relaxed atmosphere – for example, to help you prepare for an international conference – Graduate Services offers a monthly English Club for doctoral students and postdocs. The FernUniversität glossary is a useful tool for your English-language communication. It contains the most important terms related to the FernUniversität.

Graduate Services (in German)
FernUniversität Glossary

Binational Doctorate

If you are working on a binational doctorate, you will have a supervisor at a foreign university in addition to your supervisor at the FernUniversität. In this way, you are automatically integrated in two different academic systems and have the opportunity to benefit from a wide variety of international experiences. The FernUniversität is involved in several international doctoral networks and offers a number of opportunities for binational doctoral studies. You will need to establish the initial contact with the foreign university yourself. Once this has been successfully achieved, Graduate Services will help you formalize the collaboration by drawing up a supervision contract.

Graduate Services (in German)