The Berlin School of Mind and Brain is an international and interdisciplinary Graduate School that offers a three-year doctoral degree program in English. The School was established in 2006 as part of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments.

It is the Berlin School of Mind and Brain's mission to train outstanding young scientists to become experts in one of the relevant fields, to provide them with knowledge over the gamut of mind and brain research, and to give them the ability as well as the opportunity to cooperate with researchers from other disciplines.

Doctoral candidates are admitted by a four-step process that identifies the 10-15 best applicants. They are selected in a highly competitive and internationally open admission procedure.

Based at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, our main partner institutions in research, education and training program are the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Medical School) and the universities in Berlin and Potsdam, Magdeburg and Leipzig as well as the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

Research within the School concentrates on six paradigmatic topics each of which connects brain- and mind-related research:

• perception, attention, and consciousness
• decision-making
• language
• brain plasticity and lifespan ontogeny
• brain disorders and mental dysfunction
• human sociality and the brain

Research is strongly embedded in the basic and clinical research conducted within the region allowing for synergistic research initiatives and opportunities. The School has a faculty comprised of nearly 60 distinguished researchers, including five Max Planck directors, four Leibniz Prize winners, several ERC advanced grant recipients, and the Einstein Visiting Fellow. Together with the associated research groups they cover the most relevant research areas in the mind and the brain sciences.

Partnerships with several international universities are maintained for research and training exchange, joint conferences, and lab rotations:

• University of Aarhus, Denmark
• Bar-Ilan University, Israel
• King's College London, UK
• University College London, UK
• Duke University, USA
• George Mason University, USA

Eight reasons to decide for the Berlin School of Mind and Brain

• You become part of a structured program that offers ample opportunities in research, education and training in one of Europe's largest mind and brain research communities
• You are assigned at least two professorial thesis advisors - usually one from the brain sciences, one from the mind sciences, in order to ensure the interdisciplinary impact and support for your work
• You regularly meet leading international researchers through the School's own scientific meetings and international lecture series
• You are provided with substantial financial assistance to attend national and international conferences
• You arrange your own journal and methods clubs and participate in academic retreats
• You attend a series of tailor-made courses on subjects relevant for interdisciplinary mind and brain research, and you have access to specialized scientific soft- and hard-skill courses, a mentoring program, career development, and coaching
• You do not have to pay any tuition fees associated with the program
• You have access to scholarships - the best applicants will be granted a scholarship by the School

Recent progress in the neurosciences has opened up new and exciting avenues for research that raise challenging conceptual and ethical questions calling for an interdisciplinary approach. The Berlin School of mind and Brain offers a unique research and training environment for doctoral candidates to work at this exciting interface between the sciences and the humanities.

Application deadline

15 January 2013

Further Information

For details please

• visit our Web site www.mind-and-brain.de
• or contact mb-admission@hu-berlin.de

Contact

Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin

Visitor address
Luisenstrasse 56
10117 Berlin
2nd floor, room 308

Phone: +49 30 2093-8105

mb-admission@hu-berlin.de
www.mind-and-brain.de
www.neuroscience-berlin.de