Inside the course program
Your goals are our motivation: Whether you want to improve your project management skills, enhance your rhetorical abilities or gain expertise in submitting scientific funding applications - the TUM Graduate School (TUM-GS) supports your transferable skills development with a comprehensive program of workshops and courses.
This is because a doctorate involves much more than the scientific work on the dissertation itself: Presenting at international conferences, managing research projects or navigating complex team structures and different communication styles, to name just a few examples. Various challenges await first stage researchers, to which a broad transferable skills profile provides an answer. Especially in today's dynamic working world, these transferable skills, which you can apply in diverse fields, are becoming increasingly important.
How we enhance your skills

TUM Graduate School (TUM-GS) offers a wide range of courses in five different areas to expand and sharpen your competency profile. The courses are designed as complementary qualification during your doctorate at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and offer valuable orientation for your next career steps.
The five areas of the Transferable Skills Training cover a wide range of topics, from personal development to planning future career paths. The course program also takes into account the diverse and varied life journeys of doctoral candidates, who also pursue different career paths after their doctorate. The transferable skills acquired during and after the doctorate will therefore be relevant in different ways. The aim of the qualification program is thus to provide as holistic a transferable skills profile as possible, designed according to international standards and quality criteria.
To the course program
Facts & Figures
The key figures of our Transferable Skills Training program:
70+ courses per semester
75+ trainers
43% courses in English
45% online courses
>1.000 participants each year
95% of all participants recommend our courses
🎬 Skills Booster
In each episode of our “Skills Booster” video series, we use the expertise of our trainers to focus on a key transferable skill for doctoral candidates. Get valuable tips and learn how you can develop your skills beyond your academic specialization.
In the first episode of "Skills Booster, we cover the topic of “scientific writing”, a fundamental skill for academic work. Jeremiah Hendren, communication consultant and trainer at TUM-GS, shares his experience and explains what good scientific writing is: “Good writing is not about making it fancy, making it stylish. It is actually about the science itself. It is about bringing the science to life.”
In the second episode of "Skills Booster, we delve into the topic of resilience. Judith Bergner, a qualified psychologist who specializes in Mental Health and trainer at TUM-GS, shares her insights on the challenges doctoral candidates often face during the doctorate and how to cope with these while being resilient. For Judith, resilience “starts with the body - being present in the body and noticing your needs."
The third episode of “Skills Booster” is about time management and how to manage your time efficiently during your doctorate. Dr. Daniel Kunzelmann, cultural anthropologist and TUM-GS trainer, gives helpful tips and insights, such as how you can use procrastination to your advantage. Good time management doesn't just mean using specific tools, but also asking yourself deeper questions about your own behaviour: "What are you running away from? What are you postponing - and why? Once you get an answer to these questions - the what and the why - you can get closure on that, you can tackle it."