Support for Doctoral Students
Pastoral Care by Coordinator
The first point of contact for all doctoral students is the IMPRS Coordinator, who is currently also the Institute’s independent contact person for doctoral students. The Coordinator offers advice on IMPRS/LU regulations and minor conflicts with supervisors. In more problematic cases of conflict, the Coordinator will forward the case through the appropriate channels and ensure that the situation is resolved in a professional manner (e.g. by engaging an external mediator etc.). Additionally, students may approach the Coordinator with questions related to (mental) health issues. The Coordinator will support students in receiving professional support from institutions related to the IMPRS on Cognitive NeuroImaging (see also Health and Wellbeing).
In addition, doctoral students and especially international candidates, are supported with respect to any bureaucratic hurdles they might face and are assisted with the administrative processes related to enrolment at the University etc. This will promote a soft onboarding and allow focus to be placed on the PhD research project.
Buddy System
Each new IMPRS student will be assigned a buddy: a more senior PhD student who can be approached with any questions related to the PhD, the department/group, or the situation of relocating to a new city (or country). This is meant to be low-threshold support, enhance cohesion in the IMPRS, and enhance self-efficacy.
Mentoring by Early Career Postdocs
Further support is provided by Postdoctoral researchers who have finished their PhD not longer than three years prior. As their own experiences with the PhD are still vivid, they are meant to provide first-hand mentoring and consultation regarding the ups and downs related to many PhD projects. On the other side, Postdoctoral researchers benefit from this role as they are often challenged to review different supervision styles and to take over a mentorship responsibility and perspective on someone else’s PhD project. Our goal is that such an experience helps the Postdocs to adopt the role of a PhD supervisor at a later point of their research career.
Childcare Support
Doctoral students with small children benefit from the well-established network of child-care support, both at MPI CBS and at Leipzig University.