We at CERes ... train people.

The Münster Centre for Emerging Researchers (CERes) offers a broad programme of training for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. Workshops, event series, and formats like coworking foster generic skills, good scientific practice, and career planning. Initiatives such as creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP) support your reflection and strategic development. Our program complements the many thematic or discipline-specific structured programmes and is also tailored to doctoral researchers pursuing individual doctorates. Participation is free of charge and sustainably supports your personal and professional growth.

Training areas
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Structured, comprehensive training

To enable effective development, we have created seven training areas based on three recognised competency frameworks: UniWiND (Germany), ResearchComp (EU), and Vitae (UK). These areas provide a solid foundation for translating international best practices into a structured, comprehensive training programme. They help you navigate the research environment more effectively, build your competencies in a targeted way, and actively shape your academic career. In this way, you will be optimally prepared for the challenges in research as well as alternative career paths.

© Peter Leßmann

Focus on postdocs

The postdoc phase entails many special challenges. There are still needs for guidance and training, but there is a clear shift. Certain things become even more important for postdocs: planning their academic career, sharpening their research profile and raising its visibility, leadership skills, learning how to successfully acquire third-party funding, and applying for professorships. At the same time, tightly scheduled everyday life as a researcher leaves almost no time for taking up additional offers. CERes uses snappy formats and the events it plans are closely linked to the needs expressed. In this way, CERes creates space for personal development. Do feel free to contact us at any time with your own ideas!

Training areas
Training areas

  • Discipline-specific competencies

    This training area encompasses the knowledge and skills required for conducting independent research and communicating research findings according to the values, rules, and standards of a particular disciplinary field.

    It includes:

    Discipline-related content knowledge and skills
    Mastery of the state of research in one’s own disciplinary field or related fields, transferring it into personal research project, and creating added value.

    Research methodology knowledge and skills
    Knowledge, understanding, application, combination, and development of research methods in one’s own disciplinary field.

    Discipline-specific information management
    Acquisition, evaluation, and application of discipline-specific information.

    Discipline-specific communication (written and spoken)
    Written and verbal communication of findings and insights according to the standards of one’s own disciplinary field. This includes strategies for disseminating findings and insights within the academic community.

    Discipline-specific values and rules
    Knowledge, understanding, adherence to, and promotion of the ethical values and rules established by professional societies and other relevant discipline-specific institutions.

    Inquire within your Faculty about relevant training opportunities.

  • Academic professionalism

    This training area encompasses the knowledge and skills necessary for professional conduct within the academic community.

    It includes:

    Social relationships in the academic community
    Knowledge, understanding, and management of social relationships within the academic community. This includes reflective knowledge about the academic system and its framework conditions, dealing with potentially conflictual, asymmetrical relationships, as well as the ability to promote collaboration and resolve conflicts.

    Ethics, values, norms, and rules in academic research
    Knowledge of, adherence to, and promotion of legal and ethical standards in research, such as the Code of Conduct, data protection, good publication practices, and responsibility towards society.

    Open Science
    Knowledge, application, and commitment to open science practices, including the publication of research findings in Open Access (OA), data management, and preregistration.

  • Techniques of academic work

    This training area encompasses the knowledge and critically reflective application of techniques and tools (including AI-based) that support the academic work process.

    It includes:

    Information management
    Documentation, organisation, management, and sharing of information, including the use of software tools such as Citavi and EndNote.

    Reading, writing and presenting
    Knowledge and application of various reading, writing, and presentation techniques, along with the use of software tools such as LaTeX and Word.

    Creativity techniques
    Knowledge and application of various techniques and tools for generating innovative ideas and implementing them into new approaches and solutions.

    Logic, analysis and critical thinking
    Methods to enhance comprehension, interpretation, and critical evaluation of complex issues, alongside the construction of logically coherent arguments and critical reflection on the use and integration of new technologies, such as generative AI, within the research process.

  • Self-management

    This training area encompasses the necessary knowledge and skills to independently shape and promote personal and professional development.

    It includes:

    Health and well-being
    Knowledge and application of various techniques and methods to actively shape and promote physical and mental health, as well as personal well-being.

    Individual career development
    Knowledge of career opportunities both within and outside academia, knowledge and application of various techniques and methods for reflective goal setting and active shaping of personal career. This also encompasses techniques and tools of networking, including building and maintaining networks, as well as self-marketing (e.g., LinkedIn, ResearchGate).

  • Management

    This training area encompasses the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure the availability of required resources, lead and execute projects, collaborate in teams, and lead individuals or groups.

    It includes:

    Project management
    Knowledge and application of various techniques and tools for planning, executing, monitoring, closing, and evaluating projects.

    Teamwork and leadership
    Knowledge and application of various techniques and tools to support collaboration with team members, as well as to guide and lead individuals or groups.

    Generation of financial resources
    Identification and acquisition of third-party funding and other financing opportunities.

  • Teaching and didactics

    This training area encompasses the competencies needed for the professional design of teaching activities at the University.

    It includes:

    Teaching and learning

    Testing and rating

    Feedback and evaluation

    Advising students

    Innovative teaching

    Inquire with the  Centre for Teaching in Higher Education (ZHL) about relevant training opportunities.

  • Social responsibility & transfer

    This training area encompasses the knowledge and skills that establish the connection between science and society and promote the positive influence of science on social processes such as sustainability, diversity, or democracy.

    It includes:

    Science communication
    Strategic (written and verbal) communication to disseminate research findings to different target groups outside of academia (e.g., the public, political decision-makers).

    Transfer
    Knowledge transfer and the practical application of research findings, such as the practical utilization of scientific knowledge in various sectors or the founding of spin-offs.