Doctoral candidates

Doctorate and starting a family - it's not an either/or decision. Many doctoral candidates want both, so overlapping the doctoral phase and starting a family is not a special case. Nevertheless, doctoral candidates with children face particular problems in everyday life, as they have to reconcile the demands of the different areas of family and academic life.

Doctoral candidates, prospective doctoral candidates and postdocs can obtain interdisciplinary information, assistance and advisory services from the Graduate Academy's Welcome and Service Desk for Doctoral Candidates and Postdocs, including on the following topics:

• Steps to a doctorate
• Registration and acceptance as a doctoral candidate
• Enrolment
• Financing the doctorate or postdoc phase
• Qualification programmes for early career researchers
• Research and qualification stays in Germany and abroad
• International Tutoring Service for doctoral candidates and postdocs
• Doctorate and postdoc phase with family

No generalised statements can be made about the social security laws for doctoral candidates. Rather, a case-by-case decision is necessary here, which is orientated towards the individual status of the person concerned. The decisive factors are the type of funding (employment, scholarship) on the one hand and the enrolment status on the other.

The following applies to all doctoral candidates: Enrolment as a doctoral candidate is not mandatory for a doctorate at FSU Jena. Regardless of the type of funding, doctoral candidates may enrol as doctoral students by paying the semester fee. The requirement is that you are not working more than 20 hours per week (or more than 26 hours per week if you are employed at FSU Jena or a cooperating research institution). All information on deregistration from the register of students at the University of Jena can be found HERE de

If you are a doctoral candidate and are only doing your doctorate or are employed for a maximum of half of your regular working hours and are therefore also enrolled as a (regular) doctoral student, you can use the information for students as a guide.

If you are a doctoral candidate and work more than half of your regular working hours as an academic staff member, the information for employees de also applies (e.g. for maternity leave and parental leave regulations, reduced working hours and fixed-term employment contracts).

Scholarship holders have a special position under social security law. Depending on the scholarship provider, the financial benefits and options for extending the scholarship vary if you are bringing up one or more children under the age of 12 or caring for close affiliates. If necessary, you should always seeka personal discussion with the relevant contact person at the Jena Graduate Academy de of Department 1 de or your scholarship provider.