Deadline for Admission to Doctoral Examination - January 2026
n case you are planning to apply for your doctoral examinations by
06. January 2026 (thesis submission by 18.01.2026), please note that the deadline to inquire the signatures from the GSfBS coordinator for your applications usually is on Friday 12:00 (noon) before the Monday deadline indicated on the website of the Doctoral Office https://mathnat.uni-koeln.de/en/phd/dates-and-deadlines.
For the upcoming examination period, we can only assure a smooth processing of your requests if they reach us
by Friday, 19.12.2025 12:00 (noon).
The GSFBS office will be closed during the Christmas and New Year holiday period.
Doctoral Candidates seeking consultations for this final stage of their PhD are encouraged to drop an email to arrange an appointment.
Please contact
Dr. Isabell Witt (when your surname starts with A–L)
Dr. Katerina Vlantis (when your surname starts with M-Z).
To facilitate the procedure, please comply with the following
- You have filled the application form correctly and completely; the application has been signed electronically by you and your (formal) advisor
- IMPORTANT: Note that Section 6 "Acknowledgement by the Department's Graduate School" in the "Application for admission to the Doctoral Examination" form is meant to be filled by the coordinators. DON'T tick or select any of the options, DON'T enter any comments in this part of the form.
- It is recommended to coordinate with your examination committee in advance to determine the date of the defense within the examination period.
Members of specialised programmes
- You inform the coordinator of your programme and have them Cc'ed when you contact the GSfBS. The coordinator comments on the fulfillment of the mandatory core curriculum.
- If the coordinator of your programme is not available or not informed, the points for GSfBS members need to be followed
GSfBS-only members (no additional membership in specialised programme)
- You have uploaded all documents associated with your TAC meetings to the GSfBS G-folder in Docfile.
- In your email to us, you include the exact dates of all TAC meetings you had during your PhD.
- You have uploaded the certificate of attendance of the Good Scientific Conduct workshop to the GSfBS G-folder in Docfile
The GSfBS has prepared a leaflet containing suggestions on how to approach the writing of a doctoral thesis in Biological Sciences. The document is intended solely to provide guidance on certain aspects.
Advanced Doctoral Candidates who wish to access the document are welcome to contact the GSfBS coordinators.
THANK YOU to all participants for making this a super PhD day experience
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Hae-Na is the creator of the summary of the 18.09.GSfBS PhD day
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Awardees of PhD award on 18.09.
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Awardees of the PhD award 19.09.
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Career-perspectives-Alumni
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Cartoon summary of career perspective session on 19.09. by Nhu Tran
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poster-prize-awardees
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Poster_award
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organising team
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flying catch box for Q/A
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poster session 4th floor
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poster session biocenter
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sabrina speaking to full audience
Welcome to the Graduate School for Biological Sciences
In May 2006, the University of Cologne established an international, broadly based graduate school in the biological sciences providing students with opportunities for training in fields ranging from molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, ecology and evolution, and including all the major microbial, plant and animal model organisms. Based on a phase of systematic experimentation in earlier, small-scale graduate programmes in which we have developed and tested methods for an improved graduate training, we developed a structured programme for the graduate school of the department for biology. A large variety of specialized graduate programmes is partly unified under the GSfBS umbrella and a core programme is available for all graduate students in all areas of biology. It fosters the excellent scientific connections between research groups in the basic science and medical research institutes in the University and the Max Planck Institutes for Plant Breeding Research, for the Biology of Ageing and for Metabolism Research and exploits them for the benefit of the graduates.
