The Faculty of Social Sciences at Goethe University counts among those in the Federal Republic of Germany with a wealth of tradition and diversity in teaching and research perspectives. For its duration through the end of 2013, its international PhD program “Democracy, Knowledge, and Gender in a Transnational World”, in short IPP Transnational, will be supported through funding the Faculty procured in 2010 within the scope of the DAAD call for submissions “International Promovieren in Deutschland” (IPID). The implementation of the program substantially profits from the expertise of the International Postgraduate Center Social Sciences (IPC), which houses the IPP Transnational and whose funding and supervisory structure ideally complements its range of offers.

The program admitted thirty PhD candidates a year. In terms of content, the IPP Transnational’s profile connects three thematic fields that combine central research issues of the 21st century. Emphasis is placed on the interrelation between current transnational social transformations and the development of democracy, the (re)formation of the gender order, as well as bioscientific findings and practices. In the IPP's lecture series, the Forum Transnational, renowned scholars present and discuss their most recent work on topics and concepts related to the IPP's thematic fields.

The program contributes to the internationalization of the training of PhD candidates in the Faculty of Social Sciences and is designed to make studying for a PhD at Goethe University even more attractive, in particular for international junior scholars. The candidates will be directly integrated into the top-level research currently being performed by the professors participating in the program. Besides the attractive program run by the IPC, additional supervision measures are available to PhD candidates at the IPP Transnational that provide ideal conditions for attaining a PhD and precipitate completion of the thesis.

A seminal element of the IPP Transnational is the establishment of exchange programs with selected international partner universities as well as the promotion of sandwich and binational PhDs. After successfully completing the program, the initiators envision the PhD candidates as having enjoyed comprehensive academic training at the highest level; decisively expanded their theoretical, methodical, and interdisciplinary competencies; and acquired multidisciplinary key qualifications that enable them to begin a promising career both within or outside the university.

Please use the menu bar above in order to obtain further information about the program’s goals and offers.

The IPP Transnational is financed through funding by the DAAD and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

The current program ends in December 2015. Therefore, we are not accepting applications at this time.