As part of the Advanced Scientific Training, the doctoral students of the CPC Research School Lung Biology and Disease (Class of 2019) had the opportunity to participate in a practical grant writing exercise. Under the guidance of Claudia Staab-Weijnitz and Matthias Wjst, nine Ph.D. students received an overview of what the grant landscape in Germany looks like, why it is important for the future careers of young scientists to apply for grants, and what skills you need in order to write a grant application successfully.
Equipped with this knowledge, the nine Ph.D. students could choose a topic for their grant related to, but not identical with their PhD project, notably based on their own ideas and not discussed with their respective supervisor. The grant application deadline was Oct 17, 2021. All grants were evaluated by three randomly assigned peer reviewers from the same class as well as by the CPC Research School grant evaluation committee composed of Faculty Members Claudia Staab-Weijnitz, Mareike Lehmann, Markus Rehberg, and Matthias Wjst, using a standardized rubrics. A further evaluation took place in form of an Elevator Pitch on Oct 21, 2021 where doctoral students had to convincingly present and “sell” their ideas. Camila Melo Narvaez (Lehmann Lab), Ceylan Onursal (Staab-Weijnitz Lab) and Ursula Rambold (Adler Lab) were particularly successful.
We warmly congratulate the three winners, who are now able to order consumables worth 2000 euros for their own project ideas, thanks to the DZL, which hereby is gratefully acknowledged.