Attendance of the doctoral seminar is required for all doctoral students (including associate members) throughout the programme. The doctoral seminar lies at the heart of the qualification strategy. It is the focal course for doctoral candidates, contributing to the development and nurturing of a community where early-career researchers share experiences and jointly discuss solutions to research problems. In their first semester, doctoral students use the colloquium to present their research proposals to the group and supervisors and finalize detailed thesis outlines. In subsequent semesters the colloquium offers them an opportunity to discuss their work in progress and receive feedback from peers and BAGSS faculty.

Pillar coordinators and doctoral researchers jointly organize a monthly BAGSS-wide colloquium. It serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the presentation of current research projects and findings by faculty as well as leading external scholars whose work is relevant to the BAGSS Pillars. In the case of visiting scholars whose expertise is relevant to specific dissertation projects, we try to organize individual discussions or small-group workshops with doctoral researchers.

This seminar-based course offers a one-semester introduction to social science methodology relevant to all disciplines involved in BAGSS. It takes place in the first semester and aims to provide beginning doctoral candidates with a structure for organising quantitative and qualitative research and supports them in refining their research questions and designs.

Depending on the outcome of the research-training needs assessment at the beginning of the first semester, doctoral students attend at least one advanced course providing them with the necessary discipline-specific theoretical foundations relevant to their thesis. Given the inter-disciplinary nature of some of the projects, this may involve courses in one or more disciplines.

Depending on the outcome of the research-training needs assessment at the beginning of the first semester, doctoral students attend at least one advanced course deepening their knowledge of key issues relevant to their thesis. Given the inter-disciplinary nature of some of the projects, this may involve courses in one or more disciplines.

This one-semester course will typically be taken in the first semester. It provides doctoral researchers with crucial insights into some of the advanced quantitative methods required to investigate the substantive research questions at the heart of BAGSS. This includes longitudinal statistical models such as event-history analysis, panel analysis and time series as well as multi-level models.

This small-group workshop consists of approximately four sessions, normally spread over the second semester. It allows doctoral researchers to deepen some of the issues discussed in the Advanced Data Analysis course and addresses specific research problems that involve advanced statistical modelling. The topics for intensive discussion therefore depend on the input and requirements of the relevant doctoral researchers. The workshop includes analyses of data sets used in the specific research projects, thus combining advanced training and the advancement of doctoral dissertation projects. The workshop is not compulsory for doctoral researchers using qualitative methods who have an opportunity to discuss their methodological issues in a special workshop.

This course provides advanced training in qualitative methods. It covers, for instance, problems of sampling in qualitative research, case studies, process tracing, qualitative-comparative analysis (QCA), fieldwork, in-depth interviews, focus-group research, discourse analysis, ethnographic methods and the presentation of qualitative data in theses and publications.

This small-group workshop consists of approximately four meetings, normally spread over the second semester. It allows doctoral researchers to deepen some of the issues discussed in the Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences course and addresses specific needs arising from the individual projects. The topics for intensive discussion therefore depend on the input and requirements of the relevant doctoral researchers. The workshop is not compulsory for doctoral researchers using quantitative methods who have an opportunity to discuss their methodological issues in a special workshop.

During semester breaks, doctoral researchers have opportunities to participate in summer or winter schools either offered by BAGSS principal investigators (e.g., high-powered workshops on the Analysis of Incomplete Data) or at external institutions. Semester breaks also offer opportunities for doctoral researchers to stay at national or international host institutions associated with BAGSS.

After completing the core curriculum, doctoral researchers in the third and fourth semester will be involved in designing their own small-group workshops with intensive discussions of both substantive issues and applied methods. Rather than faculty stipulating standardised courses throughout the programme, a sufficiently large number of doctoral researchers propose substantive or methodological problems or topics relevant to their theses. Pillar coordinators bear in mind these suggestions as much as possible and attempt to address any remaining suggestions via the Monthly Colloquium and by inviting outside experts.

In cooperation with the Trimberg Research Academy (TRAc), BAGSS offers students a number of opportunities to acquire important professional skills that improve their career prospects in and outside of academia. Teaching experience and appropriate didactic training are an important component of this part of the programme, at least for those candidates seeking to continue with an academic teaching career. Doctoral students thus have the possibility to participate in didactic seminars or peer-reviewed teaching experiments sponsored by TRAc and are encouraged to teach at least one undergraduate course. The elective programme also includes lectures, seminars, and workshops on a variety of other issues such as rhetoric, research ethics, academic writing in English or German for foreigners.