JuDocS - Jülich Center for Doctoral Researchers and Supervisors
Network – Qualification – Support
With JuDocS, the Jülich Center for Doctoral Researchers and Supervisors, we offer support and orientation to more than 1,000 doctoral researchers and more than 400 supervisors at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
By providing onboarding, qualification opportunities, project monitoring, and counselling, we aim to foster high quality standards for all doctoral projects and to facilitate the productivity of our doctoral researchers and supervisors. Furthermore, we closely cooperate with active researchers, thematic graduate schools, interest groups and university partners to identify current needs and to continuously adapt our activities accordingly.
Our activities
Onboarding
With central onboarding, we provide you with important information and give you the opportunity to get to know colleagues from other areas to make it easier for you to start your doctoral project or supervise one.
With JuDocS, we accompany you throughout the entire doctoral process in Jülich and support you with transferable skills courses, project monitoring and counselling, e.g. if a supervision conflict arises.
With central onboarding, we provide you with important information and give you the opportunity to get to know colleagues from other areas to make it easier for you to start your doctoral project or supervise one.
JuDocS is led by a scientific head who is an institute director and a scientific deputy head who is an experienced supervisor at Forschungszentrum Jülich. They make all landmark decisions for JuDocS and maintain communication with the Board of Directors.
JuDocS Council
To include the perspectives of all internal stakeholders on the JuDocS activities, we have the JuDocS Council with representatives of the 11 FZJ institutes, interest groups of doctoral researchers as well as supervisors, graduate schools, human resources and works council. The JuDocS Council meets twice a year to discuss current topics and can form committees to actively participate in shaping JuDocS measures. Thus, there were and are various topic-specific committees, e.g. for:
Counselling in Supervision Conflicts (ongoing)
Support Measures for Supervisors (ongoing)
FZJ Supervision Guidelines (completed)
JuDocS Advisory Council
With the JuDocS Advisory Council we seek to establish a direct exchange with our most important university partners. The Advisory Council meets once a year and includes representatives from the rectorates and faculties of various universities from the region. There we discuss strategic topics related to doctoral processes like digitization, standards for qualification measures and supervision standards.
JuDocS Office
The JuDocS Office is responsible for the operating business of JuDocS. For example, it organizes the transferable skills curriculum, the support measures for supervisors, implements and maintains our IT tool DokMS and supports all committees.
Our partners
University Partners
Three quarters of our doctoral researchers graduate at one of the faculties of five universities in the region, namely
We therefore closely cooperate with these universities and discuss strategic issues relating to the support of doctoral researchers within the framework of the JuDocS Advisory Council.
Graduate Schools
There are different graduate schools at Forschungszentrum Jülich, and we are in continuous exchange with each other. These programmes usually offer discipline-specific courses, events and measures that complement the transferable skills courses. Notwithstanding, all doctoral researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich attend the same set of mandatory transferable skills courses and can view their individual curricula and achievements in DokMS, as this IT tool is jointly used by all of us. More information about the individual graduate schools is available on their websites:
We are in close exchange with the interest groups of doctoral researchers (DocTeam) and supervisors (Supervisors’ Forum) at Forschungszentrum Jülich to include their view in our measures and to support them in their activities.
Prof. Dr. Markus Diesmann JuDocS Scientific Head INM-6 / IAS-6
Prof. Dr. Ingar Janzik JuDocS Deputy Head IBG-2
Dr. Sabine Hanrath Head of JuDocS Office Support for Early-Career Scientists (W)
Joining for a doctoral project?
Being one of Europe’s biggest and most multi-disciplinary research centres with a strong research infrastructure, Forschungszentrum Jülich offers unique opportunities for PhD projects.
