Curriculum

The interdisciplinary nature of the field of human origins requires PhD students to be educated and trained in a very broad range of topics. The goal of the IMPRS LSHO is, thus, to provide PhD students with an extensive and comprehensive training while at the same time giving PhD students sufficient time for doing research and pursuing their thesis projects.

The core curriculum consists of a set of three core seminar weeks ("Perspectives on Human Origins") which are spread over the academic year and are mandatory for all IMPRS LSHO PhD students:

• Core Seminar Week "Comparative and Molecular Primatology" (until 2018)
• Core Seminar Week "Functional Genomics and Paleogenomics"
• Core Seminar Week "Human Evolutionary Ecology and Cultural Evolution" (from 2019)
• Core Seminar Week "Paleoanthropology"

PhD students are expected to attend the seminar weeks during their first, or in exceptional cases (e.g. field work, illness), during their second year, and to pass a written examination that takes place after each core seminar week.

Furthermore, PhD students take part and give presentations in group seminars and journal clubs regularly throughout their entire PhD time. They typically present a poster or give a presentation at one or several international conferences.

In addition, the IMPRS LSHO offers a selection of supplementary seminars on statistics, programming and transferable skills, e.g. scientific writing and presenting, as well as German courses for PhD students from abroad.