2024 Call for PhD proposals

 

The CARe Graduate School’s PhD program is devoted to the training of students in multidisciplinary research topics, from basic science to clinical or pharmacological applications, with a focus on cancer, ageing and/or rejuvenation. PhD research projects are directed by CARe-associated research teams from academic laboratories or partner companies. The EUR CARe PhD program selection will have two phases:

Phase 1: PhD pre-proposals will be submitted to Claire Mendoza (claire.mendoza-berrio@univ-tlse3.fr) and Clemence Grosnit (clemence.grosnit@univ-tlse3.fr) using this template, before evaluation and selection by the CARe Scientific Committee. Deadline for application is March 1st, 2024.

The applications must fall in the field of cancer, aging and/or rejuvenation. In addition, multidisciplinary is highly recommended and proposals must be at the interface of biology and mathematics, computer science, chemistry or physics. Examples are: mathematicians addressing complex biological questions by developing new molecules, tools, technologies or models, possibly doing some bench work, or biologists trained in mathematics, physics, computer sciences, advanced bioinformatics to develop new strategies that would be later questioned/validated in experimental biological settings…

Partnerships between teams from different doctoral schools, and/or foreign universities or industry are strongly encouraged (see scoring below). A short internship abroad (3 to 6-month) is mandatory, the nature of which should be briefly mentioned at this step. The travel and accommodation will be funded by the CARe program.

The scoring system (out of 10) is the following: 

  • Scientific quality of the proposal (5 points)
  • Co-supervision & interdisciplinarity (options 1 to 3 are not cumulative)
    1. If the project involves co-supervision by two teams working on different themes, each affiliated to a distinct disciplinary doctoral school : 2 points (lowest score)
    2. Or if the project includes co-supervision with an industry partner or a foreign university : 3 points (middle score)
    3. Or if the project involves co-supervision with an industry partner or a foreign university, spanning two interdisciplinary fields : 5 points (highest score).

NB: the candidates should not be formally identified at this step.

Upon acceptance, the proposers will be informed on March 11th, 2024, and the proposals will be posted online on CARe’s website and social networks.

Phase 2: PhD candidates for the pre-selected projects will submit the full proposal to Claire Mendoza (claire.mendoza-berrio@univ-tlse3.fr) and Clemence Grosnit (clemence.grosnit@univ-tlse3.fr) using the template that will be made available on CARe’s website.

At this step, PhD candidate must be identified and are asked to send a complete CV. In addition, it is mandatory to provide a full description of the 3-6 months internship, including a signed attestation from the hosting foreign university or from industry.

The files must be submitted as a single PDF before May 10th, 2024. Applicants will defend their proposal in early June 2024, in front of a jury representative of the CARe Graduate School, with delegates from Toulouse partner doctoral schools.

The audition will consist of 12 minutes of presentation and 15 minutes of questions. The presentation and the answers to questions have to be done in English.

The presentation must include, in this order, 1 title slide, 1 slide presenting the candidate, one slide presenting a previous research experience. The rest of the slides are dedicated to the presentation of the project (scientific justification of the research project, strategy, methodology, feasibility and risk management), including a description of the internship abroad or in industry. The following criteria will be evaluated by the jury: discussion of a previous research experience, quality of the oral presentation and of the response to questions.