On Thursday, the project directors of the CRC 1342 met with the Dean of the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), Patrick Sachweh, and the BIGSSS Managing Director, Christian Peters, to discuss the current planning status of the training of the CRC PhD students.

The PhD students employed at the University of Bremen will become Affiliated Fellows and complete the structured training programme at the BIGSSS, beginning in September 2022. The training programme is initially very work-intensive: the time required in the first semester is about 1.5 to 2 days per week, but decreases significantly in the following semesters.

The heart of the winter semester 22/23 is a) the weekly "Core Theory Seminar", which offers a broad introduction to theories, theoretical approaches and research directions in the dynamics of social policy, and b) the weekly Proposal Workshop, in which the PhD students develop and discuss the topics of their doctoral theses.

In the course of the summer semester 2023, all PhD students will defend their proposal at the Doctoral Colloquium and present it at the BIGSSS Summer Retreat. Besides a monograph, a cumulative thesis is also an option, consisting of three essays and a theoretical framework.

From the second year onwards, the training programme at the BIGSSS will be flexibly adapted to the needs and wishes of the CRC PhD students ("demand-oriented curriculum"). The seminars and workshops will be covered by networks with other institutions at the University of Bremen and external speakers.

The CRC's external PhD students who are employed at the universities in Bamberg and Bielefeld will not become Fellows of the BIGSSS, but they can attend parts of the course programme at their own choice. In addition, they will be invited to the BIGSSS retreat to present the plans for their theses.