The Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience
International Max Planck Research School
for
Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
Written by Horst Herbert
It all began in the past century – It was 1999 when the first international neuroscience
graduate program was launched at the University of Tübingen, the Graduate School of
Neural & Behavioural Sciences. Back then, it was the first English-taught neuroscience
master’s program at a German university. The research-oriented training and the combination of basic science and clinical research were features that attracted young graduates
and thus, this Graduate School quickly became a well-known training site for German and
international students interested in neuroscience.
In our 2007 proposal for the Werner
Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), we put forward measures to establish additional international, interdisciplinary neuroscience
graduate programs at the University
of Tübingen in order to provide students with state-of-the-art neuroscience training and to simultaneously
ensure a steady supply of well-trained
students to meet the increasing demand for young researchers in local
laboratories.
Remembering the beginning
Today, we can look back at the very
prosperous years. Right after the start
of its first funding period, the CIN then
fostered the establishment of the
Graduate Training Centre of Neurosci-
6 | NEUROMAG | July 2016
ence, which now serves – together
with the International Max Planck
Research School – as an umbrella
body that coordinates and runs three
international neuroscience degree
programs, i.e. the Graduate Schools
of Neural & Behavioural Sciences
(launched in 1999), of Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience (2008), and of
Neural Information Processing (2011)
(www.neuroschool-tuebingen.de).
extending from genes & molecules
to behavior & cognition and up to the
level of theoretical & computational
approaches. All of these approaches
utilize state-of-the-art applied neuroscientific methods, in particular brain
imaging and molecular imaging methods. This has instated Tübingen as a
prime location for graduate students
and post-docs interested in any one of
the many aspects of neuroscience.
While the individual graduate programs, each comprised of a consecutive master’s and doctoral degree
program, have their specific scientific
foci, they simultaneously and optimally complement one another. Together they provide a markedly broad
spectrum of neuroscience research
and training opportunities in Tübingen,
A prime responsibility of the Graduate Training Centre and of its steering
committees is to develop cutting-edge
course curricula and recruit lecturers
for classroom teaching and laboratory
training. The majority of the lecturers
come from various institutes at the
University, including the medical and
the science faculties as well as their