The focus of this doctoral course is on the fundamentals and the evolution of the behavior of non-human primates and humans. The projects are in the fields of psychology, anthropology, and biology, and numerous issues are examined from a comparative perspective. The focus is on the social behavior of non-human primates, group behavior, and group coordination, developmental psychology, as well as the cognitive and physiological basis of behavior. The Faculty of Biology and Psychology, the Courant Research Center "Text Structures" and the German Primate Center are involved in the course.

With their doctoral projects, the students are integrated into the research activities of one (or two) of the working groups involved. Each doctoral candidate is supervised by a three-person thesis committee. The involvement in the Courant Research Center "Text structures", which is funded by the Excellence Initiative, ensures that current research approaches are also dealt with by other groups. In the research colloquium, doctoral students report on the progress of their own project.