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Information for Applicants

Thank you for your interest in joining the Clever Lab!

Please find below important information concerning your application.

Short term lab internships, exchange stays of students from outside TU Dortmund

Please note that we are usually not able to supply any funding for such a stay, so the application for funding from an exchange program of your university (or from DAAD) is required to cover expenses for travel, accommodation and living costs. Also, information about the eligibility to join a study program, the possibilities to collect credits and the participation in any exams has to be settled by the applicant beforehand, i.e. in contact with the international office of TU Dortmund. It is the applicant's responsibility to obtain a valid visa, health and personal liability insurance and bring enough funds to pay for rents, deposits, travel and living expenses for the duration of the stay.

Bachelor Thesis

Please contact Prof. Clever via e-mail. It is advisable to inform yourself about the current research topics and get in touch with the group's PhD students or postdocs beforehand.

PhD thesis

Please contact Prof. Clever via e-mail  with a clear idea on which topic you would be interested to work, based on the recent publications of the group.

For applicants from outside TU Dortmund: While there may be funding opportunities from time to time (please also look for announced positions!), the acquisition of external funding, e.g. from DAAD, Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (for applicants from within the European Union) or any other scholarship organisation will raise the chances for obtaining an opportunity to join our lab.

Please indicate in detail about your synthetic and analytical laboratory skills, your handling of specific instruments and software, as well as contribution to scientific meetings and publications. Your application (single PDF file not exceeding 10 MB) should contain a CV, titles of previous research projects, transcripts of university records, references and a dedicated motivation letter, in which you explain your interest in our research, illustrate your fascination for supramolecular chemistry and suggest your contribution to our current projects.

Further note that it is the applicant's responsibility to obtain a valid visa, health and personal liability insurance.

Postdoctoral research

Please be aware that Prof. Clever receives many postdoc applications from all over the world on a daily basis and that unpersonalised, generic applications of the form "Dear sir...", devoid of any indication for specific interest in our work, cannot be answered.

Further, the funding situation for postdoctoral researchers in German universities is usually tense and only very few opportunities for postdoctoral fellows payed from university resources or project funds arise from time to time. On the other hand, excellent candidates with a convincing track-record (proven by first-author publications in renowned, peer-reviewed chemistry journals) may have a chance to earn a postdoctoral fellowship from a prestigious source such as the Alexander-von-Humboldt foundation or the European Research Council. Please be aware that obtaining these scholarships is very competitive and an excellent research proposal is a key requirement.

Since Prof. Clever cannot support more than a few of such application procedures per year, he will only be able to consider postdoc applications which contain a fully elaborated research proposal (including introduction, key ideas, research plan, figures and references) from which he may have to make a choice of the most compelling and promising ones to pursue further steps (usually commencing with a Skype interview).

Applicants should make themselves familiar with the group's current research directions, future interests (as articulated on the research section of the website and in the outlook of recent papers), available research infrastructure and general developments in the field. Certainly, highly inspired and unique research ideas, still in accord with the group's general topics, comprising a balanced combination of promising and risky goals, intended to be tackled by an interdisciplinary approach, will be most welcome! In case a funding is granted, it is the applicant's responsibility to obtain a valid visa, health and personal liability insurance.

Location & approach

The campus of TU Dort­mund University is located close to interstate junction Dort­mund West, where the Sauerlandlinie A 45 (Frankfurt-Dort­mund) crosses the Ruhrschnellweg B 1 / A 40. The best interstate exit to take from A 45 is "Dort­mund-Eichlinghofen" (closer to Campus Süd), and from B 1 / A 40 "Dort­mund-Dorstfeld" (closer to Campus Nord). Signs for the uni­ver­si­ty are located at both exits. Also, there is a new exit before you pass over the B 1-bridge leading into Dort­mund.

To get from Campus Nord to Campus Süd by car, there is the connection via Vogelpothsweg/Baroper Straße. We recommend you leave your car on one of the parking lots at Campus Nord and use the H-Bahn (suspended monorail system), which conveniently connects the two campuses.

TU Dort­mund University has its own train station ("Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät"). From there, suburban trains (S-Bahn) leave for Dort­mund main station ("Dort­mund Hauptbahnhof") and Düsseldorf main station via the "Düsseldorf Airport Train Station" (take S-Bahn number 1, which leaves every 20 or 30 minutes). The uni­ver­si­ty is easily reached from Bochum, Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Duisburg.

You can also take the bus or subway train from Dort­mund city to the uni­ver­si­ty: From Dort­mund main station, you can take any train bound for the Station "Stadtgarten", usually lines U41, U45, U 47 and U49. At "Stadtgarten" you switch trains and get on line U42 towards "Hombruch". Look out for the Station "An der Palmweide". From the bus stop just across the road, busses bound for TU Dort­mund University leave every ten minutes (445, 447 and 462). Another option is to take the subway routes U41, U45, U47 and U49 from Dort­mund main station to the stop "Dort­mund Kampstraße". From there, take U43 or U44 to the stop "Dort­mund Wittener Straße". Switch to bus line 447 and get off at "Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät S".

The H-Bahn is one of the hallmarks of TU Dort­mund University. There are two stations on Campus Nord. One ("Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät S") is directly located at the suburban train stop, which connects the uni­ver­si­ty directly with the city of Dort­mund and the rest of the Ruhr Area. Also from this station, there are connections to the "Technologiepark" and (via Campus Süd) Eichlinghofen. The other station is located at the dining hall at Campus Nord and offers a direct connection to Campus Süd every five minutes.

The AirportExpress is a fast and convenient means of transport from Dortmund Airport (DTM) to Dortmund Central Station, taking you there in little more than 20 minutes. From Dortmund Central Station, you can continue to the university campus by interurban railway (S-Bahn). A larger range of international flight connections is offered at Düsseldorf Airport (DUS), which is about 60 kilometres away and can be directly reached by S-Bahn from the university station.

The facilities of TU Dortmund University are spread over two campuses, the larger Campus North and the smaller Campus South. Additionally, some areas of the university are located in the adjacent "Technologiepark".

Site Map of TU Dortmund University (Second Page in English).