Göttingen Emergent Minds (GoEMMI)

Göttingen is located in central Germany in the state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), and as such is very well connected by the Deutsche Bahn high-speed rail system. Those arriving by rail should book tickets for the Göttingen Central Station (Göttingen Bahnhof).

For those arriving by plane, the most convenient airport is Frankfurt International Airport (FRA) located in Frankfurt am Main. From the airport, Göttingen can be reached in ~2h via high-speed rail. The most convenient train ticket to Göttingen for those arriving by air can be booked from Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof which departs from inside Terminal 1 of the airport and has a direct connection to Göttingen.

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The GoEMMI school is hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, located at Am Faßberg on the edge of the city. The campus can be reached via a 25 minute bus ride on the 21, and 23 bus lines from the central station, and the 22 bus line from the city center.

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The GoEMMI Winter School is primarily aimed at late-stage Master’s students, PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, group leaders and professors working in areas such as computational neuroscience, statistical physics, complex dynamics, information theory, and biological or machine learning who are interested in deepening their understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of cognitive science.

This said, we warmly welcome applications from anyone with an interest in the topic: please do not hesitate to apply, even if your background does not fully align with those listed above. We particularly encourage applications from individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in academia.

The school is intended to provide a mixture of theoretical and hands on experience. Students will attend a mixture of lectures, which explore relevant background information and theory in a topic, and tutorials, where students will have the opportunity to engage practically with the material and discuss topics in depth with lecturers. Students will also complete an independed project with final results presented on the last day of the school.

A detailed schedule is available on the Schedule page.

There are many accomodation options available in Göttingen. However, we encourage students to stay at the Max Planck Institute Guest house, offering double rooms or a shared apartments. The Guest House is located in the southern part of the city, is connected to the train station by bus lines 61 and 21, and to the winter school venue by bus lines 21 and 22. The cost for the entire duration of the Winter School is €360. We encourage students to extend their stay by one additional week to complete the hands-on activities of the school without additional cost.

During the first core weeks of the school (15/02/2027 to 26/02/2027) the school will feature lectures and hands-on tutorials from distinguished speakers as well as a hackaton. The thirs week of the school (26/02/2027 to 06/03/2027) will feature, instead, lab visits, networking events and time to further develop the projects initiated during the hackaton. Applicants are strongly encouraged to participate in the full three weeks, but only the attendance to the first core weeks is compulsory.

If you cannot find the answer to your questions in the FAQs, you may contact the organizing team at goemmi@ds.mpg.de. Please note that we are a small team, so responses may be significantly delayed.

We will open the application process at the beginning of June. Please have your up-to-date CV ready. We will ask you to indicate your level of confidence with programming languages and to briefly summarize your research projects related to the topic of the school. When considering applications, we will take into account the applicants’ career level to normalize obvious discrepancies in research experience. No reference letters are required.

Applications will close on September 1st 2026.

The list of selected students is expected to be announced at the beginning of October, providing ample time for VISA procedure, travel arrangements and planning.

You will be able to specify your VISA requirements in the application form. We’ll gladly help you as much as possible.

There is no registration fee for the GoEMMI Winter School. However, participants are responsible for their own travel and accommodation expenses.

We believe that financial constraints should not prevent anyone from attending. Therefore, we will do our best to support selected participants with travel and accommodation costs when no alternative funding is available. If funding is a concern, please indicate this in your application.

Accommodation at the Max Planck Guest House costs approximately €360 for a stay of two (or three) weeks. Coffee breaks and one conference dinner are included in the program. Lunches and most dinners are not covered and must generally be paid for by the participants.

The university canteen is conveniently located near the lecture hall and offers affordable lunch options (approximately €4 per meal). In addition, the Guest House is fully equipped with kitchens and refrigerators, allowing participants to easily prepare their own meals if they wish.

During the first core weeks of the school, the participants will be offered the opportunity to present their projects during a poster session. Additionally, there will be presentations from research groups based in Goettingen related to the topics of the winter school. Aside from the institutional program, there will be team building events and tours of the city.

The third week of the school will feature several laboratory tours as well as networking events.