Courses for Credits
The soft and transferable skills courses for credits recommended by CEITEC MU are more in detail described in the sections below.The overview of formal requirements relevant to CEITEC PhD School is available HERE.
AUTUMN SEMESTER
International Performance (CEITEC MU course)
Course description: The goal of the course is to familiarise PhD students with different approaches in the presentation of his/her scientific outcomes in an international environment. It aims to improve scientific writing skills, preparing a poster or oral presentations of the participant. The importance is also given to working with bibliography, citation rules and electronic sources of scientific information. The students become familiar with converting tedious data of their research into the words and sentences of an interesting story, which is an essential step for establishing international cooperations as well as acquiring funds.
Participants’ feedback: This course was held already in previous years, and participants evaluated the course as excellent or very good. They mentioned that the course was interesting, helpful, and applicable to my everyday life. And getting feedback on that from the teacher as well as the students was useful.
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/sci/podzim2022/S4001
Law, Ethics and Philosophy of Science (CEITEC MU course)
Course description: The main objective of the course/workshop is to acquaint students with the practical aspects of gaining and treating scientific knowledge. At the end of the course, students should be able to understand the importance of methodology better, ethics and law in science, to know the basics and background of epistemological approaches in science or to be aware of ethically exposed legal issues in science (intellectual property, copyright, data protection).
Participants’ feedback: This course was held already in previous years, and participants’ feedback to this course was positive despite law terminology, which was a bit more challenging to understand. This course is more theoretical and provides an overview of ethics and related areas in science.
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Starting out – 1st year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/sci/podzim2022/S4002
Academic Writing in English (CEITEC MU course)
Course description: This course is designed to be combined with CJV_AP2 Academic and Presentation Skills. This course is designed for students who need to revise or upgrade their grammar skills to ensure communication accuracy in academic environments and contexts. Through the execution of a small live project, course participants are placed in authentic academic and research situations, some of which require active interaction with external parties in English. Diverse tasks, interactions and written texts engender or further develop participants’ knowledge of English, skills in applying the language both accurately and flexibly in both prepared and unprepared academic scenarios, improve participants’ macros-skills, and boost their confidence to the point of unconscious use of English. Projects will expose participants to such academic tasks as writing abstracts, summaries, proposals, and articles, giving and receiving feedback in critique, describing trends in their fields, as well as the results of their research. This course addresses grammar from an EAP/ESP perspective.
Participants’ feedback: In summary, the concept and method of the course were both well received, as was the teacher’s personality, style, and qualification. Several students made very positive suggestions for improvement. It was kind of complicated in the online form (autumn 2020 – the first time in the online form), but still, the teacher understood each student really well and made a great connection with everyone. All were free to talk and discuss anything, and that made the students confident.
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Starting out – 1st year/ Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/cus/podzim2022/CJV_AP1
Publish or perish: The art of research and scientific writing - practical course
(The course is not taught in autumn 2022)
Course description: The course aims to introduce graduate students in bio- and medical-sciences to challenges in performing research and publishing in peer-reviewed journals. The course will combine (1) short workshops and discussions on topics related to writing productivity, (2) “read and critique” writing group meetings, and (3) seven lectures by experienced scholars on how to turn projects into published articles.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year/ Final stages – 4th year and above
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/sci/podzim2021/S5040
FRESHERS: Skills for Research Careers
Course description: The aim of the course is to get an overall picture of the topics that researchers face, such as international exchanges within PhD, financing research and grant opportunities, publication ethics, communication of science and research results promotion, etc. and thus strengthening the abilities and skills of young scientists to better integrate into national and international projects and research structures.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Starting out – 1st year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/cus/podzim2022/FR_P2022
UNIX and programming courses
Course description: At the end of the course, students should be able to use basic commands of Unix and Linux operating systems, combine them into more complex structures using scripting, create scripts in the AWK and gnuplot programming languages. Students should be able to combine their scripting knowledge to analyze outputs of basic scientific and technical calculations. Acquired skills are a prerequisite for computational chemistry and molecular modeling, and for a follow-up study of compiled programming languages (C/C ++).
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year/ Final stages – 4th year and above
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/sci/podzim2022/C2110
From Ideas to Business (in the Czech language)
Course description: The main objective of the course is to introduce students to the field of entrepreneurship as a possibility of their future career choice (in comparison to an employee). The subject also focuses on the research (academic) environment and offers specific tools, procedures and methods for working with the main concept (identification, development, usage or processing of the main idea up to a stage of eventual formation of a company). The aim is also to inspire and motivate students by examples from practice and to offer real inputs from interesting entrepreneurs. It also includes presentation of principles of research plan realisation, possibilities of financing, protection of intellectual property and methods of transfer of technologies and knowledge out from the university environment.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year/ Final stages – 4th year and above
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/course/sci/autumn2022/XV004
Biotechnological Excursions
Course description: Professional excursions’ objective is to provide the students of biology and biochemistry larger view and practical experience with workplaces, which use microbiological and molecular biotechnological methods in the working processes.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year/ Final stages – 4th year and above
Link: https://is.muni.cz/course/sci/autumn2022/Bi7171
SPRING SEMESTER
InnoCore - Advance Methods for Protein Characterisation
The aim of this course is to introduce to students present possibilities of methods of Protein Characterization.
https://is.muni.cz/auth/course/sci/spring2023/S5018
Project Skills in English
Course description: The goal of this MU Language Centre course is to familiarise PhD candidates with the essentials of academic writing skills that can be effectively adopted in writing projects and grant proposals. You can choose your group according to your schedule (weekly or as a block course). Participants will be working as a group, then individually in one-to-one sessions, and they will also receive personalised feedback on a writing task of their choice. Register „Project Skills in English“ in IS to obtain 2 ECTS.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Starting out – 1st year
Link: https://www.cjv.muni.cz/aktualne/pozvanky-na-akce/project-skills-in-english?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email
Science Communication Course: Present Your Research Results with Confidence (CEITEC MU course)
Course description: Giving scientific presentations is an important part of sharing researchers’ work and achieving recognition in the larger scientific communities. Students will learn how to create clear, concise content for scientific presentations and how to deliver their message in the most efficient and dynamic way. Students will not only learn how to deliver scientific presentations more effectively but also with more self-confidence.
Participants’ feedback: This course was held already in 2019, and the participants’ feedback was very good. The participants praised especially the practical part, where they could practice in front of their peers.
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/sci/jaro2023/S4010
Academic Presentation Skills in English (CEITEC MU course)
Course description: The course helps students understand all the dimensions (body language, voice, content) of verbal communication in English, appreciate speaker-audience relationship (using the audience for effective communication), have a sense for successful and unsuccessful graphic communication on a slide or give and receive feedback professionally.
Participants’ feedback: This course was held already in previous years, and the participants’ feedback was very good. From spring 2021, we have a new lecturer, so relevant feedback will be available after this semester.
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/course/cus/jaro2022/CJV_AP2?lang=en
FRESHERS: Skills for Research Careers
More information in the autumn section.
Communication skills training
Course description: The aim of the subject is simple – to provide you with space, support and inspiration you need to practice and enlarge your communication skillset. You will be training yourself by making speeches, giving feedback, listening and improvising. More than focusing on formal correctness, we want to engage your creativity and individuality that will help you get your thoughts, ideas and/or emotions across to others.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year
Link: https://is.muni.cz/auth/predmet/sci/jaro2023/XS450a
Microbiological Excursions
Course description: The objective of these professional excursions is to provide the students of biology and biochemistry practical experience with workplaces that use microbiological and biotechnological methods in processes and technologies.
Participants’ feedback: not available
Recommended stage of study for completing the course: Mid-stage – 2nd-3rd year/ Final stages – 4th year and above
Link: https://is.muni.cz/course/sci/BI6161, https://is.muni.cz/auth/el/sci/jaro2021/Bi6161/index.qwarp