Qualification program

The training and qualification program of the Doctoral School Closed Carbon Cycle Economy contains elements for the interdisciplinary education and further training of the participating doctoral candidates and promotes the scientific exchange and networking of these among themselves throughout the entire doctoral period.
The program includes the following elements:

Doctoral seminar

The central component of the program is doctoral seminars (AP 2-1) that take place every 8 - 12 weeks. In the seminars, doctoral students inform and advise each other about the current status and progress of their doctoral projects. These are to be presented in the form of short lectures and subsequently discussed. This will enable students to practice free presentations as such, as well as dealing with critical questions and new ideas from doctoral students from a wide range of disciplines. Within the framework of the doctoral seminars, a discussion of the current research topics is to be made possible without evaluation contexts, so that the seminars are largely self-organised and organised by the doctoral students themselves and the supervisors are not initially to participate. An exception to this are special doctoral seminars, which can be supplemented by guest lectures by invited speakers or similar.

Colloquium

At least once a year, the DS CCCE organises a colloquium. This colloquium will have a conference character and clearly provides for the involvement and participation of the supervisors involved in order to be able to assess the progress of the doctoral projects holistically and to be able to supplement them in an advisory and supportive manner with a view to the overall project. The doctoral students not only benefit from the well-founded experience and knowledge of other disciplines, but are also trained in a more formal framework with regard to lecturing at conferences and receive important feedback with suggestions for further work. The colloquia are usually scheduled as a one-day event and may include contributions from DS CCCE members, guest speakers, project partners and stakeholders of the Rhenish Revier.

Lecture series

In order to make overarching topics and methods more accessible to all doctoral students, the qualification programme is supplemented by compulsory lecture series. The lecture series is designed and conducted by the supervising professors, advanced postdocs and associated project partners, who devote themselves to a specific topic. The advantage of lecture series is the diversity of perspectives from different disciplines on the same topic, which emphasises and underlines the interdisciplinary character of the topics dealt with and sharpens the understanding of the respective perspectives. At the graduate level, the aim is to deal with a variety of topics from different disciplinary perspectives. This not only serves the actual transfer of knowledge, but also enables doctoral students to shed light on issues from different positions and, if necessary, to critically question them, and to take these positions into account when working on the respective doctoral topics. The offered lecture series should be offered in the summer as well as in the winter semester and should be held in a two-week cycle.

The following lecture series is planned for the winter semester 19/20 and the summer semester 20:

Closing carbon cycles as a contribution to sustainable structural change

Retreat

Retreats are usually organised and carried out by the doctoral candidates themselves, should take place once a year and are held outside the RUB for several days. As a rule, retreats include special thematic and methodological workshops, lecture series and, in particular, social events in order to promote and consolidate the exchange and cooperation between doctoral students.

Exkursion

In addition to the primarily theoretical contents of the lecture series, practical excursions should be conducted at least once a year. These promote a better understanding of the necessity and classification of the topics to be dealt with by the doctoral students and clarify the relation of the topics to reality. In cooperation with the partners of the ITZ CC, the research facilities of the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT as well as the opencast mines and power plants of RWE Power AG can be possible inspection targets.

Offer of the RUB Research School (Plus)

The doctoral students of the DS CCCE are also members of the RUB Research School and can use the full range of training and continuing education formats offered there throughout the year, depending on the offerings. While the aforementioned elements of the qualification programme of the DS CCCE are oriented towards the topics of the DS CCCE, the offer of the interdisciplinary RUB Research School includes seminars, workshops and other formats which aim at the development and strengthening of soft skills and thus promote interdisciplinary personal, social and methodical competences. In particular, professional skills within science communication are promoted, which is implemented, for example, with the help of advanced courses on topics such as scientific presentation, scientific writing or professional communication in science. The support of doctoral students in efficient time and self-management is also offered by appropriate formats. In addition, the RUB Research School offers a variety of events to exchange and network with other doctoral students outside the DS CCCE.

Further information on the services of the RUB Research School

Mini courses, block seminars, summer schools, etc.

Within the framework of the DS CCCE, doctoral candidates may also participate at their own discretion in mini-courses, block seminars or summer schools, which serve the purpose of qualification in the sense of training and further education, but which can also be conducted externally or by external experts.