Formation and development of the school

Almost 20 years after its launch, the GSN is home to over 330 students and alma mater to another 500+ alumni, and is affiliated with more than 180 faculty members.

The GSN was established in 2006 as an interdisciplinary institution of LMU Munich and a program of the German Excellence Initiative (formerly supported by Wissenschaftsrat and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG).

From the beginning, the GSN drove to become the hub for neuroscience education in Munich. In order to implement the standardization of European university education according to the Bologna consensus, the strong neuroscience community of the LMU immediately developed and implemented a program in neurosciences, which nowadays serves as an educational role model. Selected students receive intensive individual tutoring and get the chance to study in a challenging scientific environment.

The GSN demonstrates its attractiveness to foreign students by a 60% representation of internationals in the student body (our initial goal was 50%).

Right from the beginning, the LMU master's program in neurosciences was supported by the exclusive Elite Network by the government of Bavaria and was launched in the winter term of 2007. After five years, over 100 students were enrolled in both the master's and PhD programs, and the number continued to rise. After the end of the first funding period, the GSN was re-evaluted in June 2011, with excellent statements from the scientific reviewers and the government of Bavaria.

The GSN is a distinct institution of LMU Munich, governed by a scientific board and independently awarding a doctoral degree. Coordinating with a broad range of neuroscience fields makes the GSN not only on a working basis but also from a formal point of view a truly interdisciplinary program.