Graduate Training Program

We support graduate students through an interdisciplinary portfolio of offers through our Graduate Training Program. Our offers span from research-oriented courses on mobile robotics to soft skills courses on video production. The program is tailored to our PhD students’ needs and encourages interdisciplinarity within our Cluster. We regularly announce the upcoming courses on the PhenoRob mailing list.

For general offers, see the University of Bonn’s Argelander Program for Early Career Researchers and at Forschungszentrum Jülich JuDocS: Jülich Center for Doctoral Researchers and Supervisors.

PhenoRob Offers

Soft Skills Courses

Good Scientific Practice (mandatory)

Michael Mende
In-person or live via Zoom two-day course
3 Credit Points

Course content:

Rules of research integrity and Good Scientific Practices
How to Avoid Research Misconduct
Introduction to the standard statutes of research integrity (Singapore Statement, , ALLEA Code of Conduct, DFG Codex, Guidelines of the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz) as well as local regulations
Raising awareness for the significance of Good Scientific Practices with respect to different scientific disciplines
Preparing scientists for the complexities and dilemmas of the day-to-day research life by promoting moral and value development:
- Recognizing Scientific Misconduct
- Data storage, handling and protection
- Documentation
- Publication process and Authorship
- Plagiarism
- Conflict Resolution / Ombudssystem

Abstract Writing

Annette Kolb
coachacademics
Live half-day course via Zoom
1 Credit Point

Course content:

Learn about the function of a scientific abstract in general
Be informed about the characteristics and specific challenges of different types of abstracts
Engage in writing exercises for different types of abstracts and identify their personal challenges and hurdles
Feel more comfortable regarding their own upcoming abstract writing activities

Apply successfully for jobs for academics with non-academic ambitions

Basics of Science Communication

Build Confidence for the PhD Defense

Career Development

Daniela Elsner
daniela-elsner.com
Live course via Zoom
1 Credit Point

Course content:

Conduct a professional self-assessment and analyze guiding motives, goals, and competencies
Recognize career-driving decision-making and action patterns in career biography
Identify resources and areas for development and clarify career vision
Formulate concrete action steps regarding further individual career progress

Design Basics for Scientists

Entrepreneurship for Researchers

Failure in Academia

Guillaume Lobet & Sarah Garé
Live course via Zoom

Course Contents:

As researchers, we work hard on projects, put our hearts, souls and blood (not really, but you get the idea) in papers, proposals, presentations. And yet, these papers get rejected, the proposal not funded, the presentation thrashed. This is hard. However, failure and criticism are everywhere in academia. They are even central components of the scientific process, indispensable for the whole research enterprise. In this workshop we will discuss failure in academia, explore its many facets and, most importantly, discuss how to deal with it in order to make the best of it.

From Your Research to Your Company: A Viable Way to Become a Founder

German for Agricultural Sciences

How to write a successful research grant proposal

Astrid Schmitz
ZWM
Live course via Zoom
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Understand the fundamental context of acquiring and use of third-party funds in research
Acquire important methodological know-how for preparing successful research proposals
Receive tips and tricks, as well as a checklist for the individual phases of preparing a research proposal
Enhance your own "proposal competence" and improve the chances of success for your research proposals

How to Market Your Own Research via YouTube

Jan Faßbender
So geht YouTube
Live course via Zoom

Course content:

Advantages of YouTube as a platform for information exchange
Advantages of the medium video
How to integrate a YouTube channel with other websites and social media
How to find the right target audience, address them in videos and keep their attention
Different ways to give a value to a video
Tricks and tools to be better found on YouTube
The right structure for an appealing video

Hybrid Leadership

Image Rights in Scientific Context

Thomas Hartmann
Live course via Zoom

Course content:

How must images be cited in a legally compliant manner?
What special possibilities of use exist under copyright law for courses and in research groups?
What specific opportunities does Open Access offer for the use of images?
Which (Creative Commons) licenses should you specify when creating your own images that you want to share?
How do you find freely available or freely usable images?

Improv Theater ‐ and how to use it in your work and life

Improve Your Talks

Individual Career Coaching

Caroline Ketting
KettingCoaching
Individual coaching sessions via Zoom

Support on individual career topics:

Where do you want to go?
Would you like to stay in academia?
What are your possibilities outside academia?
How do you manage career development and professional changes?
Are there obstacles to overcome?
How can you proceed in a targeted and efficient way?
All this without losing sight of work-life balance?

Inside or outside of Academia? Implementing career decisions early in your academic education

Eva Reichmann
beruf & leben
Live course via Zoom
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Analyze, which field of work suits your personality traits, life and career desires and core competencies
Identify interesting and suitable fields of work in industry/public sector or science
Develop first steps of an appropriate career plan
If you are not ready to decide: develop an exit strategy (when and how should I get out of an academic career?) for your subsequent withdrawal from a more scientifically oriented career plan

Lateral Leadership

Leading in Teams

Make contacts that count: Live, Virtual and Online Networking and Personal Branding

Mark Edwards
Kompetenzia International
Live two-day course via Zoom
2 Credit Points

Course content:

The purpose of a network
Construction and maintenance of a co-operation network (or research group)
Strategic co-operation within the scientific community:
universities and non-university research institutions, businesses and organizations
Growing the network: how to approach a prospective partner
Typical problems in networks
Post-corona techniques: how to network at a social distance
Use of online networks; linked in, academic networks, Twitter and other social media
Formal and informal networks in the scientific community
The advantages of Giving as a professional work-style

Mastering Project Management for Successful Research Projects

Moderation and Presentation: Successful Communication

Ute Lange
i3kommunikation.de
In-person, one full day course
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Roles and tasks of moderation: What makes a good moderator?
Confident handling of different settings
Listening as a key skill
Dealing with hierarchies: Confidence and self-assurance in challenging contexts
Developing your own moderation style: inspiration from role models and adapting to your personality

Narrating Your Science: Using storytelling and other narrative methods for communicating your research

Networking with LinkedIn for Scientists

Paper Trailer Videos

PhD... and then?

PhenoRob PhD Writing Retreat

Lesley-Anne Weiling
Write English
In-person course
2 Credit Points

Course content:

One-day structured writing retreat to fast-forward writing projects
Support PhenoRob PhD candidates with their writing as they head towards publication
Participants will dedicate themselves to their writing project for one day
Facilitators will be on-site to supervise the day and provide individual assistance when required
Participants will be expected to commit to spending the whole day on their writing

Project Management for PhDs

Dr. Christian Stein
Lukas Bischof Hochschulberatung
Live two-day course via Zoom
3 Credit Points

Course content:

Systematic planning & implementation of projects
The 4 phases of a project cycle and their properties
Creating new approaches to solutions for your current challenges
Getting to know helpful online tools for digital project work
Using concepts and methods from project management for your PhD

Science Communication

Elisabeth Hoffmann
Richard Fuchs & Ingo Knopf
NaWik
In-person course
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Goal: Why am I communicating?
Target audience: Who am I addressing?
Role: Who am I?
Topic & Message: What am I communicating?
Formats: Where do I communicate?
Media: Which tools can I use to communicate?
Style: How do I communicate?

22 February, 2021
Elisabeth Hoffmann
Live course via Zoom
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Introduction to media work including an overview of the different channels of science communication
Learn how to set up a communication concept professionally
Receive ideas for customized measures for your own topics and interests
Discuss guidelines for good science communication
Find out who and what can support you to communicate effectively

Scientific Collaborations among Diverse Team Members

Imke Lode
Lindengruen
In-person course
1 Credit Point

Course content:

Becoming aware of our own and others’ diversity and “cultural and diversity glasses”
Perception, implicit bias and Critical Whiteness
Socio-cultural imprints and the cultures of academic disciplines
Key cultural imprints and their impact on scientific cultures of collaboration
Anti-bias scientific working cultures and diversity competences

Scientific Writing

Lesley-Anne Weiling
Write English
In-person course
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Understand what makes good academic writing and the influence of culture on writing style
Learn the structure of an English paper and how to indicate your paper’s importance
Discover how to introduce a narrative structure into your paper
Find out how to create cohesion in paragraphs and write well-structured sentences
Learn classic mistakes made when writing academic texts and how to correct them

Social Media in Science

Talk like TED: Convincing Presentations

The Art of Leadership

Kathrin Keune
artbased solutions
In-person or live via Zoom two-day course
3 Credit Points

Course content:

Theoretical and practical understanding of leadership beyond the gender discussion
Different leadership models and the discovery of owns own personal style (artsbased
process) - taking into consideration diversity aspects
Roles and responsibilities of a leader
Leading communication on all levels: Initiating, supervising, mentoring, criticising,
motivating
Conflict management
Body Language as a leadership tool

The German Science System

Time Management and Stress Coping

Training on Voice and Speech

Twitter – The ideal Social Media Channel for Science Communication?!

Video Workshop: Shoot It Yourself!

Visualizing Science Projects

Research-oriented and Technical Courses

Advanced Model Specification with LASSO

Crop Physiology

Decision-Making for Autonomous Robots

FAIRAgro Training for Data Management

Winter term 2023/24
Lucia Vedder & Sophie Boße
University of Bonn, FAIRAgro & ZB Med
2 Credit Points

Course content:

Pilot training on Research Data Management for all-qualification-level researchers of PhenoRob
First part: theoretical approach, more generic input on RDM
Second part: practical approach, more detailed input on PhenoRoam. Participants are encouraged to bring their own data to do more practical work.

Organization: First part of the course takes place online, the second part in-person.

Please find more information on the course content here:
https://fairagro.net/index.php/de/informieren/veranstaltungen-2/221-save-the-date-naechstes-fairagro-rdm-training-am-15-und-18-januar-2024

How to Publish Code

Winter Term 2023/24
In-person module
Jens Behley
Lecturer at Stachniss Lab
University of Bonn

Course content:

In this course, you will discuss and introduce different ways of publishing code, but you will also be provided some practical examples on how to publish code in an optimal way
The course has a workshop format, with an intensive workload. It will take place in two 45-minute slots.
There will be no specific software tools introduced, but a handout which will function as an overview that can be used for different code publishing scenarios

Image Analysis Methods for Biologists

Machine Learning for All

Machine Learning in Applied Economic Analysis

Measuring, Analyzing and Modelling Phenotypes and Field Heterogeneities

Summer Term 2022
Winter Term 2023/2024
Uwe Rascher, Ribana Roscher, Onno Muller & Lasse Klingbeil
Forschungszentrum Jülich & University of Bonn
In-person project module
12 Credit Points

Course content:

Small groups of students plan, carry out and present small projects in the context of PhenoRob field experiments and data.
In the course you will develop your research question, prepare a measurement plan for obtaining field data and or analyzing (existing) field data, obtain your data and analyze these, discuss and present your results.

Prerequisites: Background in agriculture OR Background in Geodesy OR Background in Computer Science OR Similar

Organization: 2 in 1 Modules, carried out together with students from MSc Crop Science.

Mobile Robotics

Modern C++ – Lectures & Tutorials (2020 Edition)

Parallel and Scalable Machine Learning for Remote Sensing Big Data

Phenomics Webinars

Photogrammetric Computer Vision

Principles of Machine Learning

Every Winter Term, beginning 2023/2024
Christian Bauckhage
University of Bonn, CS and Fraunhofer IAIS
In-person project module
6 Credit Points

Course content:

Fundamental machine learning models for classification and clustering, model training via minimization of loss functions, fundamental optimization algorithms, model regularization, kernel methods for supervised and unsupervised learning, probabilistic modeling and inference, dimensionality reduction and latent factor models, the basic theory behind neural networks and neural network training
This course is intended to lay the foundation for more advanced courses on modern deep learning and reinforcement learning

Prerequisites: Linear algebra, statistics, probability theory, calculus, python programming

Research Data Management (RDM) in practice

Winter Term 2024/2025
Juliane Fluck
University of Bonn
Instructors: Roman Baum, Gabriel Schneider, Lucia Vedder
In-person module
6 Credit Points

Course content:

- Fundamentals of research data management (RDM)
- Data organisation & documentation
- Data searching, data publishing
- Semantic web technologies
- Application of the learned methods to the own research data resulting in FAIR data.

For more details, please visit this [link].

Registration: now until 15.01.2025

To register, send an email to

Simulation of Agricultural and Biological Systems

Winter Term 2022/2023
Sabine Seidel & Daniel Wallach
University of Bonn
In-person module
6 Credit Points

Course content:

The course focuses on the principles, tools and practice of working with crop models (and more generally system models).
The course begins by teaching two basic tools; the R programming language, which will be used throughout the course, and statistical notions for system modeling.
Also a simple crop model from the literature (appropriately named SIMPLE) is presented in detail and discussed. This illustrates the nature of dynamic system models, and is the basis for discussing some basic processes of plant growth and development. Importantly, the model includes effects of CO2 level.
Three essential methods of working with dynamic models are considered in detail; uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, model calibration and model evaluation.
Throughout the course, the SIMPLE model, programmed in R, will be used as an example and for exercises.
The textbook is “Working with Dynamic Crop Models”, of which D. Wallach is first author.

Organization: 2 in 1 Modules, carried out together with students from MSc Crop Science.

Sustainable Soil Management: Soil for Life

Terrestrisches Laserscanning (in German)

The Art of Modelling

Uncertainty of Point Clouds

Unreal Engine for Remote Visualization and Machine Learning

Summer Term 2023
Dirk Helmrich
Forschungszentrum Jülich
In-person or online module
3 Credit Points

Course content:

This course gives an in-depth training to using Unreal Engine as a data generator – by gaining measurements from virtual worlds
Using the ground truth data generated with a realistic rendering engine, projects gain more robust AI pipelines, insight into AI performance on quantifiable data, as well as measurements from virtual scenes with environmental conditions that can be manipulated
At the end of the course, participants have setup their own pipeline with UE and a simple ML workflow in one of the leading supercomputing centres

Virtual Worlds for Machine Learning

Dirk Helmrich
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Live course via Zoom
3 Credit Points

Course content:

This course gives an in-depth training on generating synthetic plant data for machine learning, calibration, and validation approaches
We have a focussed overview of Unreal Engine for data generation as well as how to build virtual experiments
The course will give an overview of synthetic plant data generation examples as well as a discussion on their uses and pitfalls

Please find more information here: https://indico3-jsc.fz-juelich.de/event/148/