BIGSSS-departs · Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences - Doctoral Education in Partnerships

Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences - Doctoral Education in Partnerships

BIGSSS is an international interdisciplinary graduate school of doctoral training in the social sciences. It was founded as an inter-university institution between the public University of Bremen and the private Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH in 2007. For the EU COFUND action, the University of Bremen serves as the mono-beneficiary for the BIGSSS-departs PhD Program with Jacobs University as a prime partner within the program. The graduate school currently hosts 90 PhD fellows, 10 postdoctoral fellows, 70 (incl. four inhouse) faculty and ten staff members. Its alumni network consists of 160 PhD and 20 Postdoc alumni in academic and non-academic positions. Research at BIGSSS focusses on contemporary challenges in the core disciplines of political sciences, sociology, and social psychology. Its academic program is structured in three thematic fields, which are broadly oriented to the focal points of work in the research institutes of the social sciences in Bremen. A. Global Governance and European integration B. Welfare State, Inequality, and Quality of Life C. Changing Lives in Changing Socio-Cultural Contexts At BIGSSS, these issues are analyzed from various theoretical and methodological perspectives and different national and cultural angles. Interdisciplinarity and empirical research projects are at the core of BIGSSS. Doctoral candidates profit from the graduate school’s ties to a number of outstanding social science research institutes at the University of Bremen and Jacobs University that provide the scientific experts for a close supervision of the PhD projects. The doctoral program prepares PhD candidates for careers inside and outside academia and fosters international mobility and scientific exchange. The cooperation with inter-sectoral partners is an innovative strength of the program. Career Days and a strong and diverse alumni network offer further career counseling opportunities to the Early Stage Researchers (ESRs). PhD fellows commit themselves to a three-to-six-month stay abroad at one of the networks’ renowned academic or inter-sectoral partner institutions.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union