Postgraduate training in physiology?

Almost half of all veterinary medicine graduates pursue a doctorate after completing their studies. Graduates from other areas of the life sciences also like to do their doctorate at our department. In addition to the Dr. med. vet. degree, the department has recently started offering the option of a Dr. rer. nat. degree. In both postgraduate programs, the PhD can also be obtained as an option.
Although most people initially have the acquisition of an academic degree in mind, the postgraduate doctorate offers above all the opportunity to learn scientific work and at the same time to specialize in a particular field. We take these concerns very seriously at the Institute of Veterinary Physiology. Specialization can also be achieved through (parallel) training as a specialist veterinarian in physiology. Around 50 veterinary specialists in physiology work in Germany (as of 2021). A wide range of interesting careers are open to our doctoral students once they have qualified.

Is a doctorate in physiology the right thing for me and, if so, how?

• Dissertations can be written as a monograph or as a cumulative work. In the first option, you create a single dissertation text that incorporates the scientific data from the doctoral thesis. In the second option, you work on your results with the scientific participants in individual (usually 2) specialist articles in renowned specialist journals, which are then combined into a dissertation.
  Our preference is for cumulative work, which particularly promotes academic skills and is much better at avoiding unauthorized duplication of content (plagiarism).
• You can either do a "classic" doctorate, i.e. you work on your doctoral topic under scientific supervision in our team and write a dissertation with the results obtained. Alternatively, you can do a "structured" doctorate. In this option, you complete the following in parallel as part of a PhD program at the Dahlem Research School Biomedical Sciences you will complete a three-year study program in various scientific fields of expertise in parallel as part of a PhD program at the Dahlem Research School. The special feature of the doctoral regulations of the Department of Veterinary Medicine is that (in the case of a cumulative dissertation) you are free to decide after your PhD studies whether to submit your scientific work for the Dr. or PhD degree. You will receive a certificate of completion of the PhD program in both cases.  
  We generally supervise all types of dissertation. Our recommendation is a doctorate-accompanying PhD program. It is entirely up to you which academic degree you decide on when submitting your thesis.
• We aim to award only paid doctoral theses and have almost always met this requirement in the past. If possible, it should not be necessary to work for a living at the same time. Accordingly, when awarding doctoral projects, we are bound by the availability of corresponding project or budget funds. We have also successfully supported scholarship applications in the past.
  If a funded dissertation topic is available, we will advertise this accordingly. Please check our homepage and the job advertisement of Freie Universität Berlin. You are also welcome to send us an unsolicited application. In the latter case, however, please do not be disappointed if we reply honestly that we are unfortunately unable to accept your application due to a lack of funding prospects.
• For the various subject areas of our scientific work, please consult our institute homepage..
• As a rule, external work with a self-chosen focus is not possible at our institute. We support external work with a co-supervisor at other academic institutions on a case-by-case basis if we can ensure this thematically. In this case, we scrutinize very critically how on-site supervision is guaranteed. (You should also always question this critically).
• Graduates of veterinary medicine are very welcome to use a doctoral thesis for parallel training as a veterinary physiology specialist.

• Dissertations can be written as a monograph. This means that you produce a single text comprising many pages, into which years of work are incorporated, or you complete a "structured" doctorate as part of the PhD program at the Dahlem Research School Biomedical Sciences (usually 3 years). Here you work up your results in individual specialist articles in renowned journals, which are then summarized in a dissertation.

Wath we would like from you:

• Great interest in physiology
• Above average commitment
• High team spirit
• Very good written and spoken English language skills
• High-precision mode of operation
• Willingness to deal with numbers in a statistical environment

What should the application contain?

• Detailed curriculum vitae, possibly with references to relevant internships, previous activities, etc. We are also particularly interested in your language skills (level, certificate), stays abroad, computer skills, project experience of any kind
• All certificates from your veterinary studies and your A-levels (copies).
• Certificates of previous activities, internships, etc.
• Letter of motivation, max. 2 pages: What are you interested in? Why do you want to join us? What skills and relevant knowledge / experience do you have? What are your medium and long-term career goals?
• When do you want to start?
• Which training elements would you be interested in (FTA, PhD program)?