Bips Phd Program in Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention and Implementation Science

**Leibniz-Institut für Präventionsforschung und Epidemiologie - BIPS GmbH**:
**About BIPS**
The Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS is one of Germany’s largest and oldest research institutes dedicated to epidemiology and prevention. Its core mission is to develop effective strategies for chronic disease prevention to support a healthy life course. Research at BIPS spans lifestyle and environment, biological and social factors, as well as early detection and drug safe-ty.
With about 200 employees from diverse international backgrounds, BIPS’s research covers the full spectrum from methods development and identification of disease causes to prevention and imple-mentation research. The work is supported by extensive resources, including large prospective cohort studies with tens of thousands of participants and a linked biobank, a unique claims database covering 25 million people across Germany, a population-based cancer and mortality registry, community-embedded settings for participatory research, and cutting-edge methodological expertise in causal in-ference and artificial intelligence methods for epidemiology and biostatistics.
BIPS is a member of the Leibniz Association, consisting of 96 German research institutes spanning basic and applied sciences. BIPS is closely affiliated with the University of Bremen, which welcomes international students from 117 countries. The U Bremen Research Alliance offers support with the transition to Germany through its Welcome Center. Training the next generation of researchers, includ-ing via master’s and PhD programs, is central to the mission of BIPS.

**About Bremen, Germany**
Bremen is the capital of the German state of the Free and Hanseatic City of Bremen. With nearly 600,000 inhabitants, it is a major cultural and economic hub in northern Germany. Bremen is a vibrant city that takes pride in its diverse and multiethnic population as well as its 1,200-year history and archi-tecture. BIPS is located adjacent to the University of Bremen campus, just north of the city center, and is easily accessible by tram lines and bike paths. Situated in the heart of Europe, Bremen is connected by train connections to the North Sea coast, Hamburg, Berlin, the Netherlands, and Denmark.

**Berufsgruppe**

Wissenschaft und Forschung

**Aufgabengebiet**

**PhD Program: Research component**
The focus of the PhD Program and of each individual PhD thesis is on the research component, which is embedded into BIPS’s active research initiatives and typically funded through external grants. Research areas along with associated faculty members include pharmacoepidemiology and cancer screening (Ulrike Haug), prevention and implementation science (Hajo Zeeb, Daniela Fuhr), biostatis-tics, machine learning, data science and research data management, and causal inference methods (Iris Pigeot, Marvin Wright, Vanessa Didelez), and etiologic and molecular epidemiology (Konrad Stop-sack, Krasimira Aleksandrova).
The PhD student will be matched with a senior faculty member at BIPS who is an expert in their area of interest and will serve as their primary supervisor. The student will become part of the faculty mem-ber’s research group, which typically includes master’s students, PhD students, postdocs, and/or senior scientists. PhD projects will be co-developed between the PhD supervisor and the PhD student, and will involve applied and/or methodological research drawing on BIPS’s extensive data resources or new data collections. An outline of the thesis aims and objectives (the exposé) will be developed within the first six months.
PhD students will receive close mentoring on both research and career development. An interdiscipli-nary thesis advisory committee with three members, led by the PhD supervisor, will serve as an advi-sory board for each PhD student.
The PhD student will publish findings from the thesis projects in peer-reviewed journals and present them internally and at national and international scientific conferences. PhD students will also be sup-ported in exploring other ongoing research programs and activities at the institute beyond their thesis projects. The working language is English.

**Voraussetzungen**

**PhD Program: Education component**
A structured doctoral education complements the research component of the PhD program. PhD students will begin the program as a cohort and undergo onboarding together. A team of two senior scientists and two doctoral students formally represents the interests of doctoral students at BIPS as dissertation representatives.
The coursework requirement of the PhD program is formalized by the doctoral-level seminar “Epide-miology, Prevention Research, and Biometry,” which is partly co-organized by the doctoral students at BIPS. The seminar covers topics such as epidemiology, prevention research, and biostatistics, statisti-cal project planning, implementation and evaluation, ethical and legal aspects, and good scientific