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Postdocs

Join us

Postdoctoral Programs at the Max Delbrück Center support all postdocs recruited from a variety of backgrounds, including but not limited to racial and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, genders, and sexual orientations.

In addition to recruiting prospective postdocs from all backgrounds to work on excellent research, we provide mentoring and support, and create opportunities to contribute to the scholarly community and beyond.

Once you join the Max Delbrück Center, please make an onboarding appointment with the Postdoc office. You will also receive a welcome email to remind you.

Interested in joining the Max Delbrück Center as a postdoctoral researcher? Check our jobs webpage for advertised positions.

 
Postdoc Guidelines
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Training & Career

The MDC Postdoc Office / Career Center supports the career development of our postdoctoral researchers by offering orientation sessions, courses, career counselling, mentoring, and coaching.

Our goal is to support you in your career planning and advancement. Whether you aim at staying in academia, switch to a career in industry, science management or science communication, or whether you plan to found your own company – we offer resources and contacts to help you find the way into your individual professional future.

Contact the Postdoc Office Career Center at postdocoffice@mdc.de to make a career counselling appointment.

Qualification
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The Training and Career Center offers a range of transferable skills courses for early career scientists including the unique ASPIRE program (Advanced Science career development Program for Innovation and Research). ASPIRE offers specific training courses, mentoring and networking based on the individual career paths chosen by the postdocs. The MDC E-learning platform is currently under construction.

Advice
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The Training and Career Center organizes three mentoring programs, with postdocs as mentees in two programs and postdocs as mentors in one program. Additionally it offers, counseling in the areas of strategic career planning, application support, funding, as well as competence coaching and advice in personal matters.

Networking
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The Training and Career Center strives to develop academic and non-academic contacts as necessary partners for all of its offers. These contacts are involved in events such as, the Annual Berlin Postdoc Day, Career Pathway seminar series and Career Days. These events encourage community building amongst the scientific community within the MDC and around Berlin.

 

Funding

Postdocs are training to become independent researchers, and one of the best ways to demonstrate your independence as a researcher is to get your own funding. The ability to secure grants, awards, and fellowships give you leverage, free up lab funds, and will help you get bigger grants later in your career.

Find below different possibilities to obtain external funding.

Extramural opportunities
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There are a number of possibilities of getting external funding, such as:

Here are some useful fellowship databases:

Fellowships have different regulations than an MDC contract. Please make sure to request a discussion with the group leader and HR manager of the group before applying for a fellowship. You can also contact the postdoc office for questions.

 

 

 

Achievements

Each year our early-career scientists manage to achieve extraordinary successes and to propel cutting-edge research even further. We would like to celebrate with you the publications and grants obtained by our postdocs each year!

Please have a look at the PDF files highlighting special postdoc achievements, as well as giving you an overview over our postdoc-related activities in the last years. If you know one of the postdocs listed, make sure to congratulate them on their hard work and excellent performance!

 

 

Events & Networking

The Postdoc Association organizes a number of events. Among others, the Monthly Postdoc Lunch. In addition, they help with the organization of the annual Postdoc Day. MDC Connect was created to improve networking. The exclusive online networking platform MDC Connect is for staff, alumni and project partners to engage and collaborate with the global community of current and former staff of the Max Delbrück Center.

Postdoc Seminar Series

Postdocs are encouraged to present their work at the MDC and network with other postdocs.

Postdoc Appreciation Week

Further Information at the Postdoc Appreciation Week 2022 Website