Prof. Olaf Wolkenhauer

My teaching focusses on data analysis and mathematical modelling with applications in the life sciences, i.e., Bioinformatics, Systems Biology, Systems Medicine. We have more than 15 years of experience in teaching interdisciplinary courses at graduate level. Our students are coming from biology, medicine, physics, mathematics, engineering and computer science. Over the years, I have also enjoyed the organisation and teaching at various international summer and winter schools.

I am also offering three seminars, through which I share my experience and try to support young scientists. The seminars have been booked by various Universities, doctoral training centres, graduate schools and research institutes.

Productivity, Project and Time Management for Scientists
To-Do lists, reminder apps, multiple calendars, meeting protocols, „zero-inbox“ strategies: A career goal for every one of us, should be, not to require project, time management strategies and productivity tools. Unfortunately, most of us have to handle multiple projects at work, and at home. The question is how to be most productive and effective? The seminar will help you getting more things done, avoid errors, focus on what’s important, including fulfilment, and have more effective project meetings.

Effective Scientific Communication
Scientific data do not speak for themselves but require an argument to be accepted as facts. For facts to be trusted and results being accepted, we must communicate them effectively. Therefore, scientists are, to some extent, only as clever as others think they are. The communication of scientific results is therefore at least as important as their generation. In this course, we learn a strategy to effectively communicate research in paper abstracts, in grant applications, through websites as well as in oral and poster presentations. Our analysis reveals strategies to structure and formulate texts. These findings contribute to a more successful communication of the participant’s work and identify strategies for effective forms of writing.

Successful writing of grant proposals
In this seminar I would like to share my experience as an applicant and reviewer for DFG, BMBF and EU funding. Why? (i) Because I find it difficult to write successful proposals.  (ii) Because I was elected to the DFG Review panel on the Foundations of Medicine and Biology, rewarding the trust I have gained. (iii) Because as a young scientist I would have liked to receive help for this important part of my work. The seminar is therefore aimed at all those for whom writing applications for third-party funding is an opportunity to learn. My experiences are of course limited and not universally valid. For colleagues from the engineering and natural sciences, as well as medicine, however, one or the other valuable reference could be there. The format of the seminar is not a lecture, but a discussion with hopefully many questions of the participants. The most important experience in twenty years of reviewing is the observation that proposals for research projects is a form of science communication that has a number of similarities with other forms of communication (publications, posters, websites ...). I will present this structure of successful proposals and give concrete advice on how to submit them.