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Some useful advice
The funding period at the IMPRS is three years. It is not easy to complete a PhD project in such a short time. It will be even more difficult for the doctoral researcher, if his/her previous education has been in a very different field and none of the background knowledge or technical skills necessary for the project are available.
Therefore, applicants with an educational background similar to the PhD project are at an advantage. However, it is possible to change the scientific field. For example, we do have some doctoral researcher with a background in physics or information science who are now successfully working in Earth System Science.
The important bit: you must have made up your mind about why you want to pursue your PhD in a certain field of research. It is not sufficient to state that you like research in general. You need to show that you understand the context of the PhD project you are applying for.
The IMPRS aims to find good doctoral researcher that can fruitfully collaborate with colleagues, but also happy researchers (who are not overstrained because their projects do not fit them). Here you can discover other International Max Planck Research Schools.
After you have completed the online registration form, you will receive the link to a website on which you can upload your application documents.
Optionally, you can upload
From experience we know, that the form works best with Google Chrome or Firefox. Please use one of these browsers to submit your application.
If you have several documents relating to your Master degree (for example), please combine them in one PDF (>> list of PDF software).
For being accepted as a doctoral researcher, it is not a prerequisite to have papers published in peer reviewed journals. After all, learning how to write good papers is part of being a doctoral researcher.
In your letter of motivation/ statement of purpose you should explain why you are interested in this particular PhD program. It is also interesting for us to know what you intend to do after the completion of the program.
The IMPRS for Global Biogeochemical Cycles has not made 3rd party language tests compulsory. Whether an applicant has sufficient command of the English language for a fruitful stay in the IMPRS will become apparent during the application procedure (which includes an interview either by telephone/web conference or in person).
Though good communicative skills are important, a solid scientific education and the desire to pursue a research career in global biogeochemistry are more important to us than a 100% flawless knowledge of grammar.
If you are invited to continue with the application process after the registration deadline, you may send us any language certificates you have along with your other application documents.
Please double-check for the following potential reasons for the error message
After pressing the submit button on the application form, what should happen is that you
You might need to scroll up the application form page in order to see the confirmation or the error message.
Your referee sends us the Letter of Recommendation by email and we then need to manually upload the file into our system, which might take up to 24hrs (or longer, if they mailed it on the weekend).
If you cannot find an answer to your question on our website, please write an email to the >> IMPRS office.
This page was last modified on November 07, 2022, at 02:49 PM