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FORSKSKOLE-Forskerskoler

BioStruct - National Graduate School in Structural Biology

Awarded: NOK 18.5 mill.

BioStruct is a national Norwegian graduate school in structural biology, and is a collaboration between 5 Norwegian universities (NMBU, UiB, UiO, NTNU og UiT), with UiT - the Arctic University of Norway as host institution. In the period 2009 - 2017, BioStruct has hosted between 50 and 100 PhD-students at all time. The school has established 14 regular PhD-courses with fixed ECTS, each of them provided every second year. The students have additionally been offered workshops and shorter courses in structural biology related topics, as well as in generic skills such as scientific writing, presentation technics etc. The Annual conference for BioStruct held at Jægtvolden in Trøndelag are gathering about 50 particpants every year, where networking, scientific communication and discussions, and social activities are highlighted. Internationalization activities are offered through an travel and exchange program where the PhD-student members have their research stays in laboratories abroad, financed by BioStruct. Scientists from abroad are additionally extensively used as spekers at conferences and as invited lectures in courses. Two of the members of the Advisory board are also from abroad. BioStruct aims at interacting closely with relevant industry. This is mainly done with regular lunch seminars at the BioStruct nodes where representatives from the industry give lectures about their companies and innovation strategies.

The BioStruct National Graduate School will include 26 research groups, covering 9 Departments from 5 Norwegian universities, and hold in the order of 100- PhD-students with an annual output of 25-30 candidates when in full operation. The involved institu tions have specifically dedicated 5 PhD-fellowships to the school annually, while based on the participating research groups granting over the past 5 years, we expect in the order of 25-30 new PhD-students annually to the school. BioStruct will offer a re search education in structural biology, and will include projects within e.g. biomedicine, plant biology, marine biology, microbiology, basic biomolecular research and (bio-)nanoscience, which focuses on molecular analysis using structural data. The scho ol is as such technologically based rather than thematic, and includes both experimental and theoretical methods for obtaining structural information. The partners, as a whole, generate a unique group of expertise and experimental facilities in structural biology in Norway that will ensure a high quality PhD-education. The graduate school will interact closely with relevant industry through dedicated seminars and internships. Dissemination of the school activities and research to the society and industry through open seminars, reports, brochures and via well organized websites is expected to attract more research grants to the field and increase the recruitment. Master students will also be included in parts of the activities in order to ensure recruitmen t of new research talents. The main activities of the school will be to give PhD-level courses and arrange workshops and national conferences that will unify the PhD-students of the school. An extensive exchange program among the BioStruct partners will increase the scientific quality of the PhD-work and increase the attractiveness of the PhD-candidates.

Funding scheme:

FORSKSKOLE-Forskerskoler

Funding Sources