All students in the Copenhagen Bioscience PhD programme complete three two-week rotation projects at the beginning of the pre-doctoral year. The rotation projects are associated with the course ‘Introduction to Molecular Bioscience’. Students do not choose a supervisor until after completing all three rotation projects.

New CPH Bioscience PhD students start the pre-doc year with the course ‘Introduction to Molecular Bioscience‘. The course introduces the research of Group Leaders at all four Centers to all students: Group Leaders present their research field and active research areas in their lab. During the weeks when the course is running, students approach potential supervisors whose research they are interested in, to ask about doing rotation projects in their lab. A few days after the end of the lectures, students submit their supervisor choices for the first two rotation projects. The choice for the third rotation project is made one week before the end of the second rotation project. Rotation projects are always discussed and agreed upon between the student and supervisor before rotation choices are made.

Rotation projects allow students to gain experience with the methods, important scientific questions and research environment in the labs they are interested in joining. During each rotation, students read around the lab’s research area, attend group meetings, and shadow a group member to learn techniques. Students also consider important questions central to the lab’s research and discuss them with the supervisor. At the end of each rotation project, students give a short oral presentation to the rest of the pre-doc group about the key research question they were thinking about during the rotation, and approaches to solving it.

After completing the three rotation projects, the student makes an agreement with one of their rotation supervisors to join their lab for the long-term (PhD) project. Each supervisor is eligible to receive a maximum of one student per year.