The Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School was supported by the Excellence Initiative of the Federal and State governments between 2008 and 2019. This funding made it possible to develop and establish excellent structures for the training of early-career researchers. The average duration of the dissertation is approximately 3.7 years, and our alumni typically transition relatively quickly into funded postdoctoral positions or careers outside academia. The doctoral candidates are highly mobile and international. They learn to situate their own projects within an interdisciplinary context and benefit from the intellectually stimulating and diverse environment of the Graduate School.

The Graduate School’s achievements were recognised by the Einstein Foundation Berlin in 2017. The FSGS received the Einstein Award for Doctoral Programmes in Berlin. In 2022, it was awarded the prize for a second time. Annual funding of €100,000 will be used in the coming years to support scholarship holders from the Global South.

The Graduate School supports early-career researchers in applying for scholarships and research funding and in the realization of their projects (including workspaces and administrative support). International scholars join the School through DAAD scholarships (e.g. Kaitlin Staudt, Carol Bartges, Chenxin Jiang) or the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation (Izabel Rakar), thereby enriching scholarly exchange. Former members return with external funding (e.g. Johannes Görbert, Anne Enderwitz), and FSGS doctoral candidates successfully acquire additional funding for research stays abroad (e.g. Stanford, Princeton, Moscow).

Elena Giannoulis, Japanologist and junior professor at the FSGS received an ERC-Grant [German]. Arabist Refqa Abu-Remaileh, Transregionale Studien fellow and FSGS associate achieved the same distinction. Arata Takeda succesfully applied for a DFG research project at the DFG and leads the project at the Graduate School. 

The Graduate School has established vibrant partnerships with renowned international universities, enabling doctoral candidates to spend semesters abroad. Conversely, each semester four doctoral candidates from partner universities enrich the FSGS through their presence and research projects, funded by their home institutions.

The Graduate School actively encourgaes and supports its faculty in applying for third-party funding, in particular through the Visiting Fellowship programme of the Einstein Foundation Berlin, thereby strenghtening its international profile. To date, the Graduate School has hosted Visiting Fellows such as Thomas Y. Levin (Princeton), Stefan Keppler-Tasaki (University of Tokyo), Susan Merrill Squier (Penn State University), and Michel Chaouli (Indiana University). Since 2023, a project group led by Karen Leeder (University of Oxford) has been conducting research at the FSGS, funded through a collaboration between the Einstein Foundation and the Berlin University Alliance.

The Graduate School connects Berlin-based research projects in literary studies with doctoral research. It integrates early-career scholars into its network: they present their projects in the lunch forum, participate in annual research colloquia, and in some cases are provided with workspaces at the Graduate School.