Application Deadline Extended: Dual PhD in Teacher Education

Completing a PhD and practical teacher training phase at a school at the same time. That is what future teachers can do within the university’s unique Dual PhD program. Applications can be submitted from now until July 15, 2020. There are a total of eight scholarships available.

Once teachers have settled in their daily school life, only very few find their way back to the university to start a PhD. The University of Bremen is making it possible for future teachers to combine their practical teacher training phase with a PhD by means of a scholarship. In this way they are connecting theory and practice. The teaching staff who have completed their PhD also then have the option work in schools and at universities.

Dual PhD Unique in Germany

The Dual PhD program is one-of-a-kind PhD program for teacher education students in Germany,” says Professor Sabine Doff, director of the Center for Teacher Education and Education Research and head of the program. “It allows for a subject-specific PhD to be linked with the practical teaching training phase.”

In the frame of the project, the scholarship holders develop their research plans in close cooperation with a Bremen school. They subsequently complete the practical teacher training phase there whilst collecting data for their dissertation at the same time.

During their PhD, the students are part of a PhD program, which is organized by the responsible persons from the university and schools, as well as the Bremen State Institute for Schools (LIS). There are also cooperations with other university institutions, such as the Bremen Early Career research Development (BYRD) program.

The dual PhD takes four years in total. The PhD students end the program having attained a PhD and the second state examination. They receive a scholarship amounting to 1,300 euros (plus 103 euros material costs) each month from the University of Bremen.

The program ends in winter 2020 for the first cohort of five future teachers. “The Dual PhD project is a great opportunity to support research and practice for teacher education,” states the vice president research, Professor Jutta Günther. “This is a second-to none transfer relationship with society.”