Presentation Skills - 31 August + 1 September 2026

Trainer: Amanda Habbershaw; Orlando Schenk
Date and Time: 31 August + 1 September 2026 (9:00-17:00)
Target group: PhD students
Venue: onsite at IMB
Content:
The goal of the workshop is to teach the participants methods for giving an effective oral scientific presentation and to provide them with personal feedback.

Course contents include:
- Presentation content and structure
- Engaging your listener
- Interacting in the Q&A

In addition to trainer input, practice and preparation time, the workshop includes the simulation of a conference. Each participant gives a brief presentation on (part of) their research, records the presentation with their mobile and receives comprehensive feedback for the trainers and their colleagues: a “take-home” list of points to work on.

Please register by 20 July 2026
To receive information on course fees for external* participants, please email training@imb-mainz.de

Career Crafting - 28+29 September+01 October 2026

Trainer: Silke Oehrlein-Karpi
Date: 28+29 September + 01 October 2026 (9:00-14:00)
Venue: IMB
Target group: postdocs & late stage PhD students
Content: 
For a successful career it is a prerequisite to develop your individual strategy pro-actively and as early as possible.  Although the routine of your daily work usually keeps you from pausing for a moment, it is pivotal to set some time apart for exploring your individual professional profile and for being able to plan each of your career moves in a conscious way. Being aware of your personal skills, competencies, and values is essential for defining and achieving your goals, making informed decisions and exhausting your full potential.
In this modular workshop with a blended-learning-approach, you will get relevant information about strategic career development.

Workshop Goals

- PreWork: Identification of biographical key moments related to your career – Creating a life profile

- Module I: Compilation of your individual skill profile (professional, methodological, social and personal) and of your personal value profile
- InbetweenWork I: Completing your skill and value profiles

- Module II: From values to career motivation, discussion of structural barriers and compatibility challenges in academia, identification of career alternatives to a professorship, such as scientific management and professional fields outside of science (general overview)
- InbetweenWork II: Developing a vision about your future options

- Module III: Feedback regarding your personal vision, plan A/plan B strategy & collecting concrete ideas how to move on towards your career goals

Please register by 31 August 2026
To receive information on course fees for external* participants, please email training@imb-mainz.de

Critical Reasoning and Logic - 13+14 October 2026

Trainer: Kai Hüwelmeyer
Date & time: 13 + 14 October 2026, 9:00-17:00
Venue: IMB
Target group: PhD students, postdocs, junior scientists
Content:
Scientists have to give arguments in many different contexts: in their publications, in grant applications, in lab meetings and in conference presentations. Nevertheless, the bases for strong and correct arguments are not always fully clear to them. Logic provides extremely helpful tools for scientists to develop their arguments in a coherent, well-structured and convincing way. The course introduces the most important concepts of logic: premises and conclusions of arguments, validity and soundness of arguments, deductive vs. inductive reasoning, common types of inferences and fallacies. The idea of the course is to use these concepts as a toolbox which provides useful techniques for everyday scientific work. The participants learn how to reconstruct arguments from scientific texts, how to give well-structured and logically valid arguments, and how to avoid misunderstandings.

Please register by 11 September 2026
To receive information on course fees for external* participants, please email training@imb-mainz.de

Biostatistics - Fall 2026

Trainer: Fridolin Kielisch in cooperation with IMB core facilities
Date & Time: 21 Oct - 2 Dec 2026, 9:15 - 10:45 (6 weekly units of 90 minutes each, always Wed)
Venue: hybrid (IMB + online)
Target group: 1st year PhD student + young researchers aiming at repetition
Content:
This module focuses on statistics as an important instrument of scientific work. Students will take a 'probabilistc point of view' on scientific experiments and familiarize themselfes with statistical tools like confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, ANOVA, etc. The course mainly uses the statistical computing framework R, but due to the general nature of the topics any statistical software can be used you are familiar with. 
The module consists of seven units. Between the sessions, the students will do small exercises at home. Tutors will be available for questions and answers.
Requirements: 
Participants must be familiar with a software allowing statistical analysis prior to the course. For beginners, we recommend and support a self-learning course in R.
https://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/training.html#rintro 

Please register by 21 September 2026
This course is currently not open to external* participants. For more information, please email training@imb-mainz.de

Scientific Writing - 27+28 October 2026

Trainer: Christina Schuette
Date and Time: 27 + 28 October 2026, 9:00-17:00
Target group: PhD students
Venue: IMB
Content:
3x 0,5-day interactive event with trainer input and exercises to introduce academic writing in English.
- Course content: Good and bad scientific texts / Messages - formulating main statements clearly / Presenting results: Figures and legends / Writing exercises followed by feedback, working with own texts / Parts of a paper / Writing English texts / Writing strategies / Publication process.
- Preliminary work by the participants: Analysis of a paper

Please register by 14 September 2026
To receive information on course fees for external* participants, please email training@imb-mainz.de