Core and elective courses

Doctoral students have to obtain at least 18 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) in three years.

All UWI doctoral students need to attend the 3 UWI core courses, which together comprise 9 ECTS. These courses have been newly developed for the 1st UWI cohort and are closely related to the 3 common approaches [1] (1: understanding interfacial processes, 2: conceptual models and predictive tools, and 3: practical applications) to ensure that every doctoral student gets a fundamental common educational basis in these fields and to achieve a similar level of basic knowledge in the different disciplines.

Additionally, doctoral students can select elective courses taught by the PIs who come mainly from the master programmes in Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering (Competence field Hydroscience) and Urban Ecosystem Sciences. Moreover, guest lecturers will teach short courses and give invited lectures (see our News and events [5] section). Further elective courses (e.g. scientific writing, proposal preparation) on essential professional skills will be offered by the TU-DOC office for doctoral and postdoctoral services (Nachwuchsbüro TU-DOC) in close cooperation with the central TUB institute of training and cooperation (ZEWK) as well as by the IGB. Additionally, each generation of doctoral students is introduced to ‘Good Scientific Practice’ and to ‘Sustainable Data Archiving’. For this purpose the ‘Resolution on maintaining ‘Good Scientific Practice’ within the DFG Research Training Group ‘Urban Water Interfaces (UWI)’ based on the principles of the ‘Rules of Good Scientific Practice’ of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) from 1998, including changes from 2013, was developed (PDF [6]). All doctoral students have to assure that they are familiar with these rules by signing an official document.