IntCDC Graduate School

The Graduate School IntCDC offers our doctoral researchers close support in completing their doctorate with excellent success and prepares them for the challenges and opportunities of future career paths. Regular Status Seminars, Colloquia and a core curriculum ensure close, structured guidance and full integration into the IntCDC community and research framework. Additional courses and activities allow to tailor the qualification programme to their specific research and career goals.

Emphasising interdisciplinarity, every doctoral candidate is advised by two IntCDC supervisors with complementary disciplinary expertise, one of whom functions as main supervisor. 

All doctoral researchers of the Graduate School IntCDC complete a “milestone presentation” where they review and discuss their achievements and progress and adjust the remaining research plan in conversation with both of their IntCDC supervisors.

To provide further guidance to our doctoral researchers, we have formulated a core curriculum for doctoral studies in the Regulations for the Graduate School IntCDC:

• participation in an IntCDC interdisciplinary early career seminar;
• participation in an IntCDC summer school, an IntCDC conference or an equivalent scientific event in the research field of IntCDC;
• participation in a key skills workshop on “Good Scientific Practice”.

To learn more about the general framework of doctoral studies at the University of Stuttgart, please click here or contact the Graduate Academy (GRADUS).

The Graduate School’s interdisciplinary training programme is tailored to our early career researchers’ needs and designed to deepen their scientific knowledge and professional skills.

The seminars convey theoretical and methodological skills central to the IntCDC research programme, complementing and expanding the disciplinary approaches of our early career researchers. Usually they are taught by IntCDC Principal Investigators and Participating Researchers. The seminar topics are conceptualized to guarantee a close fit to our current research questions.

In the Early Career meets Visiting Professor (ECxVP) seminars, early career researchers present their projects and exchange ideas with the top researchers in the field. They discuss research questions and career paths, job, funding and publication opportunities with the visiting professors and receive excellent supervision and individual coaching in small groups.

In collaboration with the IntCDC departments of PR, Communication, Research Data and Software Engineering, the IntCDC Graduate School offers key skills workshops to foster methodological and technical skills relevant to IntCDC.

ViNe aims to promote mutual acquaintance, interdisciplinary exchange and cross-disciplinary understanding among the early career researchers of the Cluster.

A lecture by the heads of the participating institutes (Principal Investigator or Participating Researcher) introducing their institute and research area and explaining its disciplinary characteristics is followed by a guided tour of the institute and laboratories.

This exclusive and personal format focuses on a specific career field and connects our researchers to alumni, who share their experience of successfully working in this area.

The Cluster's expert guest lecture series "IntCDC Constructive Conversations" ensures close interaction with the wider research community and industry experts to discuss current issues and challenges in the field of IntCDC. Learn more. 

The IntCDC „Get Together“ (formerly "Kaffeeklatsch”), in cooperation with EO and Diversity Management, are biannual informal meetings, aimed at community building, networking, sharing insights and experiences, and enjoying each other’s company.

The Cluster promotes an active start-up culture in order to spin off and transfer knowledge to industry.  Learn more about the EXC Start-Up Series.

Beyond the general programme of the Graduate School, we offer our postdoctoral researchers specific support in building a network and visibility to reach their individual career goals within or beyond academia.

IntCDC Postdoc Meeting & Info Session “Habilitation – Requirements, Procedures, Prospects”
Dr. Jürgen Hädrich (GRADUS)

Info Session “National and EU Funding Opportunities for Postdocs”
Dr. Bettina Ahrens-Diez (Project Office), Heinke Claß (EU Office)

We support our early career researchers in gaining international experience and building worldwide networks through international research stays and workshops with our academic partners and industry secondments and mentoring opportunities in collaboration with our industry partners.  

The “Research Network for Advancing Architecture, Engineering and Construction” (AdvanceAEC), of which IntCDC is a founding partner, offers our early career researchers further training and facilitates both guided but also individual networking opportunities. AdvanceAEC brings together national and international researchers in the fields of architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, robotics and social sciences.

AdvanceAEC Autumn School 2022

IntCDC hosted the first AdvanceAEC Autumn School in 2022 which layed the foundation for a biannually recurring format.

The Royal Danish Academy is a partner university of IntCDC and opens some offers to the early career researchers, for example the PhD course "sustainable futures III” The Science Track is led by Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (member of the IntCDC Advisory Board) and Martin Tamke (one of our Visiting Professors). Learn more

IntCDC researchers who work on machine-learning-related topics can join the IMPRS-IS International Max Planck Research School (faculty includes PI/PRs K. Kuchenbecker, M. Sedlmair, M. Niepert, A. Verl, A. Wortmann, T. Wortmann. Learn more

NextGen is IntCDC’s Leadership Programme to support high potential junior academics all the way to an academic leadership position. The programme considers three elements: mentoring, qualification and exchange. Towards the end of this programme,  participants are expected to apply to at least one leadership or to a more advanced position (e.g. junior professorship) in Germany or abroad. Through this strategy, we intend to expand our IntCDC network, spread our vision and share it with future generations of young academics in Stuttgart and worldwide. 

Successful IntCDC Alumni Researchers

A significant number of former IntCDC PhDs have now attained senior roles as postdoctoral researchers in academia and high-level positions in industry. Just to name a few:

All doctoral and postdoctoral researchers working on an IntCDC Research Project, associated projects or in ArchIDA research associations, who are supervised by an IntCDC Principal Investigator or similar can apply for membership and access support measures. 

The Graduate School IntCDC is headed by the IntCDC Commission for Early Career Support, which is responsible for its strategic development, its training programme and further support measures and activities. The current members of the commission are:

• Prof. Dr. Cordula Kropp – Member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Commission
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Manfred Bischoff – Principal Investigator
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dr. h.c. Volker Schwieger – Principal Investigator
• Dr. Li Zhang – permanent representative of Prof. Dr. Cordula Kropp
  
• Gili Ron – Representative of the Early Career Board
• Shermin Sherkat – Representative of the Early Career Board
• Benedikt Strahm – Representative of the Early Career Board
• Karolin Tampe-Mai – Early Career Manager (in advisory capacity)