Vienna Doctoral School of Social Sciences

By October 2020, a new doctoral school will be launched at the Faculty of Social Sciences: the Vienna Doctoral School of Social Sciences (ViDSS).

The establishment of the ViDSS is part of a university-wide initiative of providing structured doctoral education in many different disciplines. The doctoral schools were created with the intent to ensure the full participation of supervisors and their doctoral candidates and aim to reach critical mass so that cohorts can be formed. They are targeted at outstanding graduates of master’s programmes at the University of Vienna as well as highly qualified early stage researchers from all over the world.

The ViDSS focuses on supporting excellent research through close supervision, cohort integration and different funding programmes. The ViDSS offers:

• A number of fully-funded three-year doctoral fellowships (sowi:docs Fellowship Programme)
• Close supervision, preferably by supervision teams which may comprise also advanced postdoctoral researchers
• Onboarding workshops und annual networking meetings for supervisors
• Networking of students and integration at the Faculty’s departments through kick off retreats, disciplinary and interdisciplinary PhD clubs, peer mentoring and brownbag lectures
• Extra training and international workshops
• Research funds for research-related costs, travel expenses, proof reading and self-organised workshops
• Transferable skills trainings and support for writing a doctoral thesis
• Support of international experiences and networking
• Career-oriented events and support measures
• Completion grants (ViDSS Short-term Finishing Contracts)
• Awards for outstanding doctoral theses (sowi:doc Awards)

The ViDSS is governed by a speaker and a steering committee comprising representatives of all research fields present at the Faculty of Social Sciences as well as two student representatives. The speaker assumes the responsibilities of the director of studies of the doctoral programme in Social Sciences.