The set-up of the QUSTEC doctoral programme is inherently international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral.

Our goal is to provide the individual-oriented training programme, which balance professional mentoring with personal growth to provide each doctoral researcher with the foundations to become future team leaders in academia and knowledge-based industry.

Our layered training approach combines the fundamental training within the host research team with additional technical and transferable skills training provided within the corresponding graduate school’s programmes of host institutions, the main QUSTEC training offer and through the partnership with other external organisations.

Supervision of the doctoral projects

Each ESR project is supervised by individual training panel (ITP), which consists of the main supervisor, a co-supervisor, and a mentor. For most of QUSTEC projects, at least one of the ITP members is from the non-academic sector. The supervisor is the main contact person for all matters related to the research project, he/she actively supervises, advises, and guides the ESR on all scientific and career-related matters. The ESR and supervisor(s) meet regularly to achieve the goals set out in the Personal Career Development Plan.
The co-supervisor brings in additional expertise and viewpoints from an interdisciplinary field and can give additional guidance for the ESR in all scientific and career-related matters.
The primary role of the mentor is to identify and facilitate specific training objectives, advise on any problems faced by the ESR, including career matters with an external perspective and provide mediation in the case of disputes. In most cases, co-supervisor or mentor will be also the responsible contact person at the secondment host institution.

• The Final conference will be held in 2024 and organised by the fellows and supervisors from University of Strasbourg with the assistance of all consortium members.
• Summer School 2023 was organised by the fellows and supervisors from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
• Summer School 2022 was organised by the fellows and supervisors from Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and take place in Freiburg on September 19 – 23, 2022. More details can be found on the event webpage.
• Summer School 2021 took place on September 14-17, 2021 in Engelberg (CH) and was co-organised by the QUSTEC fellows and supervisors from University of Basel and IBM Research, together with QCQT PhD school from the University of Basel and the NCCR Spin Consortium. The participation was limited to the members of corresponding graduate school. More details can be found on the event webpage. In this article members of the summer school organisation team report on their experiences.
• Kick-Start Training was held online on June 22-24, 2020 and was organised by QUSTEC coordinator.

Besides the main events, the series of continuous training sessions are organised throughout the duration of the programme with the assistance of QUSTEC partners.

• In February 2021, Serviceteam RDM@KIT offered a workshop entitled ‘Keeping on top of your research data KIT’. The follow-up training on best Open Science practices will be provided by the representatives of the Research Data Management Network at the University of Basel during summer 2022.
• Some of the (online) scientific training courses taught by the PhD supervisors of the QUSTEC network are opened to all QUSTEC early-stage researchers.
• In January 2021, the fellows took part in the online course ‘Quantum simulation and quantum computing with atomic qubits’ taught by Prof. Shannon Whitlock.
• QUSTEC fellows also have an ample opportunity to participate in the external conferences, workshop and summer school in accordance with their Personal Career Development Plans, which ensures larger dissemination of their research results and building their professional network outside the QUSTEC programme.