Teacher training, renewable energies, neurosciences: In future, the state of Lower Saxony will be funding three new doctoral programmes at the University of Oldenburg in these areas. This means 45 doctoral scholarships for doctoral candidates.
In the course of the new call for proposals for the Lower Saxony doctoral programme of the Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK), the universities in Lower Saxony submitted 29 proposals. Eleven were approved, three at the University of Oldenburg alone, making it the most successful university. The funding period is four years and each doctoral programme receives 15 "Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Scholarships". The total funding amounts to 2.9 million euros.
"The new doctoral programmes are thematically located in teacher training, renewable energies and neurosciences - and thus in three outstanding research focuses at the University of Oldenburg," says Prof. Dr Katharina Al-Shamery, Vice President for Research. The young scientists provide important impetus for the university's research and help to drive it forward. "However, we also see the approval as recognition of our previous achievements in promoting young researchers and as an incentive to continue along this path consistently," says Al-Shamery.
The Graduate Academy, for example, which since last year has brought together all the university's interdisciplinary counselling, further education and support services for early career researchers at all qualification levels, shows just how consistent this is. The Graduate Academy forms the overarching structure for two Graduate Schools in the fields of Natural Sciences and Technology (OLTECH) and Social Sciences and Humanities.
"Learning processes in the transitional space - empirically investigating and modelling the practical phases of student teachers" is the topic of the first of the three new doctoral programmes. The applicants were working groups from the didactics departments of all Schools and the educational sciences, including the Didactic Centre (diz).
Dual role as learner and teacher
The doctoral programme deals with the dual role of student teachers as learners and teachers during the practical phase of their studies. During this phase, student teachers teach for the first time. They have to structure their lessons in such a way that they are orientated towards the knowledge, skills and thinking positions of the pupils. At the same time, the students are also learners.
They use their subject-specific and didactic knowledge to reflect on their lessons and react to them in their planning. The doctoral students analyse the learning processes of students when planning, implementing and reflecting on lessons in the practical phase. In doing so, they work out the interplay between teaching and learning and its significance for teacher training.
Functional energy supply from renewable sources
The doctoral programme "System Integration of Renewable Energies" deals with the integration of renewable energy sources into the electrical grid. The applicants were the University's School II Computing Science, Economics and Law and School V - School of Mathematics and Science as well as the Department of Civil Engineering and Geoinformation at Jade University.
The doctoral programme focuses on performance forecasting and grid operation management as well as the development of new technologies and systems that should lead to a functional, reliable and economical energy supply from renewable sources. The doctoral students' research focus is on forecasting models for wind and solar energy, the operational management and control of smart grids, storage and hybrid systems for renewable energies as well as geographical and economic system planning for renewable energy grids.
Automatic speech recognition and signal processing
The modelling of cognitive processes in the human brain in the processing of visual, auditory and haptic signals as well as research into assistive technologies - for example in hearing acoustics - are the focus of the approved "Signals and Cognition" doctoral programme.
The proposal was submitted by the Institutes of Psychology, Physics and Dutch Studies at the University of Oldenburg, the Institute for Technical Assistance Systems at Jade University of Applied Sciences and the Fraunhofer Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technologies at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT). The doctoral programme's doctoral students conduct research on topics such as automatic speech recognition, signal processing in assistive systems and modelling individual perception and processing performance.