Project Details
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GSC 129:  Heidelberg Graduate School of Fundamental Physics

Subject Area Particles, Nuclei and Fields
Astrophysics and Astronomy
Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
Condensed Matter Physics
Term from 2006 to 2019
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 24838972
 
Final Report Year 2019

Final Report Abstract

The years 2006/7 until the end of the second funding period, 2019 represent a landmark in the development of doctoral education and the support of junior scientists in Germany and in Heidelberg in particular, both in furthering their research opportunities and in placing their results on the international stage. Through the establishment of a Graduate School in Fundamental Physics in Heidelberg, it has been possible to offer a structured programme that has aimed both to deepen and to broaden the knowledge of our students, while still maintaining a strong individual programme for each student. Scientifically, the HGSFP initially covered three branches of physics: Astronomy and Cosmic Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Cosmology, and Quantum Dynamics and Complex Quantum Systems. In the second funding period, this focus was widened to include those aspects of Complex Classical Systems, Environmental Physics and Mathematical Physics that touch fundamental issues. In this way, the School has been able to draw on the scientific expertise available in the local academic environment and naturally interconnect with other disciplines, such as chemistry and earth sciences, mathematics and computer science, as well as the life sciences. The scientific impact of the HGSFP is made clear in all scientific branches of the HGSFP through the many publications in excellent journals and the role that its graduates play both in science and in industry. This follows the main objective of the HGSFP to provide an optimal research environment for doctoral researchers and foster creative individualism. The structural objectives associated with this include the introduction of a cooperative mentoring system consisting of three scientists, a structured training programme, gender equality and family support measures, and building a social fabric for the HGSFP student body. In addition, junior research group leaders were appointed in a highly competitive way, many of whom now hold professorships elsewhere. In the second funding phase, the concepts of the HGSFP have been solidified and expanded to become the default training for doctoral students at our department. The success of the new, innovative HGSFP programme, the so-called “4+4” programme, introduced to accept bachelor students into the HGSFP, will be further extended to become a fully fledged integrated master/doctoral programme in our department. By following the goal of encouraging interdisciplinary research within the HGSFP to include other disciplines such as mathematics and computer science, the faculty has benefited enormously. These seeds have culminated in a successful cluster “STRUCTURES”, that bridges physics, mathematics and computer science. We thus conclude that the unique situation of funding the HGSFP over the two funding periods has not only been extremely beneficial for the graduate students, but has been key for pioneering new concepts within the Department of Physics and Astronomy itself.

Link to the final report

https://doi.org/10.2314/KXP:1698450311

Publications

 
 

Additional Information

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