In total 84 doctoral students will be enrolled in the three year programme, which will get €4.1 million funding from the North Rhine-Westphalian Innovation Ministry, with the balance coming from the universities, and from biotechnology companies based in the industrial biotech cluster in the region.
“TU Dortmund and its two partner universities [will] become the first international address for highly-qualified young researchers in industrial biotechnology,” said the rector of TU Dortmund, Ursula Gather.
Gerhard Schembecker, who heads the new post-graduate college, stressed that close interaction with industry is a unique feature of the programme. “The research orientation towards questions relevant to industry, and the involvement of companies, are integral components of the post-graduate programme,” said Schembecker, who is professor of Plant and Process Design at TU Dortmund.
Industrial partners range from established companies such as Bayer and Evonik, to small high-tech companies like bitop AG in Witten and InterMed Discovery, situated at the BioMedizinZentrumDortmund (BMZ). These are all members of the Cluster for Industrial Biotech in the region, which has €20 million funding from the Federal Ministry for Education and Research.
The 84 students will be selected internationally from the fields of chemistry, biology, process engineering and medicine. Each will receive a monthly grant of €1,500.
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