Integrated Research Training Group (IRTG)
All doctoral researchers of the CRC are part of the Integrated Research Training Group (IRTG) (from the University Duisburg-Essen and six external institutions in Bochum, Cologne, Koblenz/Landau, Kiel, Berlin and Magdeburg), which provides a platform for multi- and interdisciplinary education and training.
The IRTG is coordinated by Verena Brauer, Vanessa Kramer, Bernd Sures and Michael Eisinger (see management team) together with the Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. The IRTG is training an outstanding next generation of scientists with integrative skills in analyzing stream ecosystems and multiple stressor effects from the molecular to the ecosystem level.
What are the goals of the IRTG?
- to create an environment for doctoral researchers that enables excellent research in an interdisciplinary and international context.
- to form a team of highly motived doctoral researchers.
- to provide a challenging interdisciplinary training program that includes the application of new methods and tools.
- to promote the doctoral researcher’s acquisition of key qualifications and skills for a later career in academia, water industry, or public services.
What does the IRTG offer?
Since all RESIST PIs also participate in the IRTG, it provides not only intensive and personalised supervision for all doctoral researchers, but also excellent and interdisciplinary scientific training. In addition, all IRTG doctoral researchers benefit form the a comprehensive training programme consisting of a lecture series, a monthly doctoral seminar, an annual retreat as well as an annual summer school. Within the IRTG, each doctoral researcher will have two scientific supervisors with complementary expertise from the group of PIs and a non-academic mentor to form the supervisory team.
They will jointly compile a personal career development plan (PCDP) sketching the research plan, comprising conference attendance, specific scientific training and soft skill courses (Fig. 1). Together with the already running NRW Forschungskolleg Future Water, the IRTG will form the core of the Water Graduate School (WGS).
The qualification programme is based on two major components, (i) the research program, and (ii) the training program (Figure 1). The research programme includes the work on the specific RESIST research project, participation in national and international conferences, publications and research stays at network partner institutions, either from the RESIST consortium or other cooperation partners of the PIs.
The training program is splitted into a (mandatory) network-wide training which is organized by the IRTG (including a central colloquium, a doctoral seminar, summer schools and workshops, annual retreats, and public engagement activities (outreach)) and an individual training program which is not directly organized but supported by the IRTG.