Program

The College for Life Sciences offers Short-term Fellowships for early-career post-doctoral scientists. You will live and work on the campus of the Wissenschaftskolleg and attend the weekly colloquia held by leading scholars in various fields, which can help you to broaden your horizon and think about your own research from a new perspective. The meals will provide time to discuss your research with scientists from all kinds of backgrounds and provide you with new and unexpected views and ideas. Within the College for Life Sciences, you will profit from discussions with peers at similar career stages. Outstanding young scientists awarded by the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) with the John Maynard Smith Prize will join and further enrich the College for Life Sciences. We offer to organize workshops and to present your research to the regular Fellows of the Wissenschaftskolleg or to facilitate your visit to research institutes in Berlin.

• a full stipend based on your previous salary
• on-campus studio accommodation in Berlin, mainly  institute financed, a negotiable amount self-financed
• access to its library and IT services
• daily meetings and lively discussions with all Fellows
• weekly colloquia
• annually changing focus groups on contemporary scientific questions
• scientific exchange with the research community of Berlin, Germany, and beyond
• the possibility to invite your scientists of interest to the Wissenschaftskolleg
• the possibility to organize workshops on scientific topics you are interested in and to invite relevant scientists
• replacement or substitution costs (Rotationsstellen)

We do not offer any lab space. However, you are strongly encouraged to develop interactions with the life science community in Berlin, to explore new laboratories, techniques, equipment, etc.

If you intend to stay with your partner and/or family in Berlin, please contact us at cfls(at)wiko-berlin.de for further information. We welcome families and are usually successful in hosting them. But since our housing possibilities are limited, we cannot always guarantee suitable accommodation for families.

For more information about the Fellowship conditions, please refer to: Living and Working

We invite applications from all life scientists who have obtained their Ph.D., MD, or Dr. med. and we foster postdoctoral fellows up to the level of lecturer, junior/assistant professors, and junior principal investigators working in all life science disciplines. We require that you have at least one lead-author publication in a peer-reviewed journal. There are no restrictions as to which life science discipline, nationality, or age. If you have been a principal investigator for longer than five years, though, you are advised to apply for a regular Fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg. Applications from scientists working at institutions in Berlin cannot be taken into consideration.

We invite Fellows for up to 6 months to work and live at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin during the academic year (September-June). The College is embedded in the regular Fellowship program and therefore officially starts in September, when all Fellows of the Wissenschaftskolleg arrive.

It is advantageous to schedule a stay at the beginning of the academic year, but participations later in the academic year and shorter durations of at least 3 months are also possible.

The advantage of a synchronized start for all College for Life Sciences Fellows in September is the formation of an interactive and dynamic Fellow group, the possibility to join focus groups of the regular Fellows, who will start their work in September, and, in general, early interaction with the regular Fellows.