Doctoral Programs in: Political Science, Psychology & Sociology

Deadline : 15 April 2010


Welcome to the Doctoral Center in Social and Behavioral Science (CDSS). The CDSS is part of the interdisciplinary Graduate School of Economic & Social Sciences (GESS) at the University of Mannheim, founded in November 2006 and financed by the Excellence Initiative. The CDSS provides a novel English-taught Ph.D. program in psychology, political science and sociology.

The strength of a specialized, research-oriented university, such as the University of Mannheim, is coherence in substantial research areas, practicability of transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, and potential for cutting-edge research in focal areas. The University of Mannheim has always been a research-oriented university - with various disciplines in the social and economic sciences sharing a common methodological understanding and commitment to marrying innovative theoretical and empirical research.

This is where the CDSS with its emphasis on empirical and quantitative methods comes into play. The CDSS is the most visible locus where the University of Mannheim is training the next generation of researchers in the social sciences. We do that in close cooperation with the School of Social Sciences, the Mannheim Center for European Social Research (MZES), the  Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS), the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA), the Central Institute of Mental Health (ZI) and the newly established Collaborative Research Centre 884.

This September we welcomed a new class of thirteen incoming doctoral students. It's the third generation of CDSS students, and at the same time, we can congratulate the first two Ph.D. students for completing the program. In the past three years, Bernhard Ebbinghaus as Academic Director of the CDSS has done a tremendous job in building up the CDSS from scratch. I guess we can hardly appreciate how much effort he put into this project to make this Center possible. Bernhard, thank you. On November 1st, 2009, I have taken over the job as Academic Director of the CDSS. While much has been achieved in the past years, we already have new milestones. One is to fully integrate our Master programs in psychology, political science, sociology and survey research and the CDSS doctoral program. A second is to succeed in the new round of the Excellence Initiative. I am looking forward to these challenges.

The CDSS is an exciting place. Come and join us. We are looking forward to receiving applications from graduating students in the social sciences for the next academic year by April 15, 2010 - from Germany, Europe and the World.

Thomas Bräuninger

Professor of Political Economy

CDSS Academic Director

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