The planned qualification and supervision concept aims at providing the doctoral students with as much freedom as possible for their research work, while optimally preparing them for and supporting them in their research activities. From an organisational point of view, the coherence of the research training group is achieved by reserving during the semester a fixed weekday (probably Tuesday) for QuantLA events. The events take place in weekly alternation in Dresden and Leipzig. The morning is dedicated to individual meetings of PhD students and supervising professors, whereas the afternoon is reserved for the research seminar with one or two talks and intensive discussions.

Overall, the qualification programme comprises the following activities:

• Weekly research seminars with talks by PhD students, associated members, professors, and visiting scientists
• Reading Groups in which a group of PhD students acquaint themselves with the literature on a specific topic of interest
• A one-week Summer School in the first year of every cohort which provides introductions to the theoretical foundations and the application areas
• Advanced lectures which go deeper into specialized topics relevant for QuantLA
• Annual workshops that take place outside of the universities and whose main purpose is to present the progress achieved by the PhD students in the previous 12 months
• Softskills courses (such as presentation, communication, and media training) and language courses

Every PhD student has two active supervisors. The rights and duties of the supervisors and students are fixed in a written supervision contract. The control of success is realized through regular individual meetings between students and their supervisors, and on a broader basis through talks given by the students in the seminar and at the workshops. The most important external performance measure is the publication of research results in the proceedings of prestigious conferences and in journals.