The Graduate Centre is primarily responsible for:

• supporting decentralised measures developed and implemented by the individual faculties to advance the careers of doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers.
• supporting the implementation and quality assurance of doctoral programmes.
• communicating and making available a comprehensive range of support services and professional development opportunities for early career researchers at the University of Augsburg.
• offering professional development programmes, including interdisciplinary tools and transferable skills that complement the measures of the individual faculties.
• organising events tailored to the career needs of researchers at various career levels.
• serving as an information platform to prepare researchers for career paths both within and outside of academia.
• providing networking and peer-to-peer opportunities, as well as activities that promote career advancement such as research and conference trips.
• coordinating programmes to recruit and retain international early career researchers and integrate them into the university community.

The main target groups of the Graduate Centre are early career researchers at the University of Augsburg, in particular doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and their advisors and mentors.

The University of Augsburg’s Graduate Centre is led by a steering committee which advises the university executive on the strategic direction of the centre, as well as on topics related to supporting early career researchers. It is responsible for the quality assurance and budgeting of the Graduate Centre, as well as for ensuring the implementation of target group evaluations and other measures, including deciding on the allocation of funding and other forms of support. The steering committee carries out the necessary academic tasks incumbent on the Graduate Centre and reports yearly to the university executive.

Members of the steering committee include:

• a member of the university executive as chairperson, according to the division of responsibilities,
• a professor from each faculty, preferably one responsible for the faculty’s measures to promote early career researchers,
• two postdoctoral representatives in the second phase of their academic qualification,
• two doctoral candidate representatives,
• a university women’s representative or elected deputy,
• the human resources development officer (with an advisory vote),
• the coordinator of the Graduate Centre (with an advisory vote).

The steering committee meets at least once each semester.