Excellent preparation for global challenges

31 March 2026, by Thomas Merten

Photo: UHH/Laura Vogiatzis

The graduate school SICSS (School of Integrated Climate and Earth System Sciences) offers options for every career stage: from master’s degree programs and Ph.D. projects, to postdoctoral and junior professor programs. Founded in 2008, SICSS has since admitted 343 Ph.D. candidates from 48 countries, especially China and India. The number of female students is at a stable 50 percent across all programs, an important step toward ensuring better academic prospects for women.

SICSS pursues an interdisciplinary approach, with a broad variety of subjects ranging from meteorology to peace studies. And its successes speak for themselves: more than 70 percent of all graduates go on to pursue an academic career, many of them at prestigious institutes around the globe. Others choose to go into politics, to serve at international organizations, or to apply the expertise they acquired in Hamburg in the business sector.

The article was published in the CLICCS Quarterly magazine, the research news from the Cluster of Excellence "Climate, Climatic Change, and Society".