Doctoral Program

Science of Intelligence is committed to the development of early-career researchers. The SCIoI doctoral program offers the opportunity to perform research towards a doctoral degree in our diverse, interdisciplinary research and teaching environment. As a doctoral student, you will focus your research around your thesis, gain hands-on experience in different intelligence-related disciplines, and learn to take different perspectives on the matter. Your research will be complemented by an individually tailored curriculum.


Supervision

The SCIoI doctoral program emphasizes interdisciplinarity. This is reflected in the fact that doctoral students receive guidance from multiple  PIs with complementary expertise. SCIoI’s research and its teaching environment guide doctoral students on their path to becoming exceptional interdisciplinary researchers and “natives” in our Science of Intelligence. Students hold annual progress meetings with their supervisors, where past achievements are reviewed and future steps are agreed upon. Long-term goals are set to be reviewed at the next annual progress meeting. These meetings offer an opportunity to tailor your individualised curriculum to your research agenda.


Curriculum

As a doctoral student your research will be complemented by an individualized curriculum to explore different disciplines crucial to intelligence research. The SCIoI curriculum features courses from all the disciplines involved in SCIoI: Artificial Intelligence, Behavioral Biology, Computer Vision, Control, Educational Science, Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology and Robotics. In particular, systems building and integration science are part of the curriculum for SCIoI graduate students - this enables our students to integrate their research into the intelligent synthetic systems we build. Twice a year, symposia for early-career researchers offer lectures, workshops, and discussion sessions to develop integrative interdisciplinary approaches to the study of intelligence. The symposia also address aspects of ethics, gender, and philosophy, which are relevant to SCIoI’s agenda.


Funding

All doctoral students will be offered full-time positions (TV-L E13). Students may choose to change to part-time positions, due to care obligations, for example.


Equal Opportunities

To fulfil SCIoI’s research and educational mission, we seek to establish a climate that welcomes and promotes respect for the entire variety of human experiences. We welcome people from all backgrounds and we seek to include knowledge and values from many (scientific) cultures.


Video: Doctoral Program Overview

In the following video, Olaf Hellwich gives an overview on the Doctoral Program:

Research

An overview of our scientific work

See our Research Projects