Volkswagen Foundation

Ilia State University houses the International Doctoral School (IDS) since 2017 that a renewed model for modern, structured and effective doctoral education in Georgia, according to best-practice quality assurance standards. The IDS is the central entity of ISU that takes care of structured doctoral programs within an international context and Cotutelle-based doctorates, currently running two big programs with German universities to issue internationally competitive doctoral degrees.

Currently, the IDS offers PhD programs and fully funded scholarships in its two big programs with the generous funding from the Volkswagen Foundation and the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia.

1.The Carl Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt International Doctoral Program (LHIDP) in cooperation with the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen since the beginning of 2018. The LHIDP gives the participating doctoral students the opportunity of receiving co-supervision from a Georgian-German supervisor team and being conferred doctoral degrees from each of the two universities upon successful completion of their doctoral projects. It has a wide range of fields in 12 major science thematic lines (12 individual full scholarships).

2.“Democracy, Human Rights and Religion”, the joint Program with the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany) that offers Georgian graduates the opportunity to pursue doctoral research in Practical Philosophy within a structured Cotutelle-based framework. The project includes co-supervision by Georgian and German professors, research and study stays at both Ilia State University and Münster University as well as the option of obtaining doctoral degrees from both universities (10 individual full scholarships).