The CRC benefits enormously from talented and enthusiastic junior scientists, in particular from doctoral candidates. Our research consortium intends to attract highly motivated and gifted junior investigators and qualify them as Ca²⁺ signaling researchers of the future. The training and promotion of junior scientists, i.e. students, doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows and group leaders, is an explicit commitment of all members and participating departments. We stimulate and support our new talents and future investigators and prepare them for leading positions in academia, research institutes and industry by the CRC 894-associated graduate program (GradPro894).

This graduate school is exclusively coordinated by PhD students with the ambition to support networking among the participating students. In addition, by choosing the topics of workshops and inviting external speakers (academia or industry), young researchers will receive training in diverse transferable skills, including soft skills (leadership, mentoring, project management), communication (presentations at national and international conferences and grant writing) as well as career development.

Transferable skills training aims at preparing the young researchers for their future career and facilitating their direct communication with relevant societal groups representing the public interest. Students receiving training in soft skills will be more competitive in their future working environment, in either academia or industry. In addition, a thorough theoretical education on the techniques and topics directly connected to their individual projects (generation of transgenic mice, advanced statistic, graphic solutions and data analysis), will lead to a better understanding of project planning, as well as problem solving.

GradPro894 started 2018 with a Kickoff-Meeting after several planning meetings of the PhD students working in the different departments of CRC project leaders. The school is not restricted to students paid by the CRC but is open to any student who is facilitating his or her PhD thesis. The students elected representatives as direct contact persons (invitation of speakers, techniques etc.). The kickoff meeting was open to all Master students and PhD students of the anatomy, biochemistry, pharmacology and physiology departments and comprised of oral presentations (senior PhD students), poster presentations (2nd year PhD students) and participants (new PhD students, Master and Bachelor students). The presentations gave an overview of the different projects, techniques and scientific questions studied at the Campus Homburg. In the future, the graduate students will regularly organize discussion rounds, a student retreat and public lectures, which will deepen the multidisciplinary understanding of each student for the different disciplines present at the Campus Homburg.

The PhD students elected Mazen Makke of Prof. Dr. Bruns Lab (CIPMM Molecular Neurophysiology) as their first speaker.