IDEALAB - Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain – (Ph.D.)

IDEALAB is a laboratory-based doctoral programme offered jointly by an international interdisciplinary consortium of 19 EU and non-EU institutions in 8 countries from 3 continents. Its aim is to train doctoral candidates who can meet the new scientific challenges in a rapidly developing field and conduct original and independent research on experimental and clinical aspects of language and the brain in unimpaired populations of adults and children as well as in language impaired children and adults. The experimental and clinical scope of this programme requires expertise and innovative techniques from neuroscience and experimental linguistics and psychology as well as assessment and intervention techniques from speech pathology. Since this combination is not available at any single research laboratory, the study of brain and language in all its aspects requires a complementarity of approaches by a joint cooperation initiative of several labs worldwide.

The consortium consists of 5 full-parter universities, 4 in the EU (Universities of Potsdam, DE, Groningen, NL, Trento, IT, Newcastle, GB,) and one non-EU university (Macquarie, AU). In addition to this core consortium, there are 14 associated partners from the public and private sector with various expertise: they include three non-EU universities (Hong Kong, HK, Beijing Normal, CN, and Lomonosov Moscow State, RU), four members from the private sector, two with a focus on R&D ((Advanced Neuro Technology (ANT) and Entwicklungsgruppe Klinische Neuropsychologie (EKN)), who are potential co-supervisors, and two publishers who are involved in training (Springer publishers and Psychology Press), and finally there are seven members of the health sector associated to the consortium who belong to the health sector and provide internships, including a rehabilitation center in Moscow, the largest centre for language impaired people in the world. By including non-university associated members in monitoring and supporting the programme, the employability of IDEALAB professionals in health rehabilitation services will be strengthened as an added value to their excellent preparation for employment in academia and specialised research labs. Moreover, their cross-linguistic and cross-cultural experience will make them highly competitive and flexible on the global job market.

To make clear reference to the joint doctoral training of the partner universities, there are common application and selection procedures, common quality assessment and programme monitoring, a joint curriculum and a common research training programme cumulating in a joint degree.