Oldenburg. Great success for the promotion of young talent at the University of Oldenburg: the state of Lower Saxony will in future be funding four new doctoral programmes at the university in the north-west, making 60 doctoral scholarships available for doctoral candidates. The funding amounts to four million euros.

"Nano-energy research" is the name of one of the doctoral programmes that the university is running together with the Emden/Leer University of Applied Sciences. The coordinator is Prof. Dr Christoph Lienau, head of the "Ultrafast Nano-Optics" working group at the Institute of Physics. The doctoral programme, in which one million euros is available for 15 doctoral scholarships, combines scientific questions from energy research with basic research in physics and chemistry.

Other programmes approved at the University of Oldenburg are "Cultures of Participation" (in co-operation with the TU Braunschweig), "Safe Automated Maritime Systems - SAMS (in co-operation with the Jade University of Applied Sciences Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth) and "Interdisciplinary Approach to Functional Biodiversity Research".

The university was already successful in the doctoral programmes of the state of Lower Saxony in 2012. At that time, the university received three out of eleven approved programmes, thematically located in teacher training, renewable energies and neurosciences.