UBGRS 2.0: a strategic project for doctoral students

In response to the SFRI call for projects, the University of Bordeaux has seized the opportunity to strengthen the international attractiveness and impact of its research-driven training and to structure the doctoral programmes globally. The UBGRS 2.0 project for "Graduate school for junior researchers of the University of Bordeaux" was selected in 2020.

Thanks to the project's funding, the Graduate Research School is pursuing the development of a dozen new Graduate Programmes, post-graduate training in scientific research, aimed at strengthening the transition between Master and doctoral studies.

As such, UBGRS 2.0 was able to deploy four new programmes at the start of the 2021 academic year:

• EUREkA / chemistry and physical chemistry of materials
• Cardiac EP / cardiac physiology and bioengineering
• Cancer Biology / cancer biology and oncology
• Numerics / complex digital systems, Big Data and networks

The project is an opportunity to round out and broaden the evolution of the doctoral programmes initiated by University of Bordeaux with the creation of the Graduate Research School in 2016. Aligning the Graduate Programmes with the university's major areas of research will involve all the different research stakeholders in training the undergraduate and graduate students, while leveraging the international attractiveness of these research communities. It will also enhance the services offered to all doctoral candidates on campus, by structuring a doctoral centre that can host associations, initiatives with alumni and elected doctoral students.

The UBGRS 2.0 objective, via the Graduate Programmes, is to organise training via research from the Master level onwards and to train experts in scientific fields of excellence. The proposed projects are aimed at making doctoral programmes attractive in order to professionalise the next generation of junior researchers. Interdisciplinary career modules ("Innovation for Human Health", "Decision-making in the Anthropocene era", "Data-driven Interdisciplinarity", "Disruptive Technology") have been set up with strategic partners. They are providing selected doctoral students with a high level of skills to face the major global challenges of our time. These modules are designed to broaden doctoral research through a multidisciplinary approach.

This programme will recruit top-level French and international students, selected from Master or engineering programmes. Courses will be backed by research and enhanced with new training methods.
The UBGRS 2.0 project was designed with the university's strategic partners (CNRS, Inserm, INRAE and Inria, Bordeaux INP and Sciences Po Bordeaux) based on the model of the NewDEAL project, in conjunction with the recently reorganised research departments. It strives to deploy a renewed international ambition, in relation with the university alliance ENLIGHT.