The doctorate gives our master's students from the Textile Products and Management of Textile Trade and Technology degree programmes the opportunity to gain further qualifications after completing their studies with the aim of obtaining a doctorate.

Our diverse research areas cover the entire field of Textile and Clothing Technology as well as related research fields and offer interested doctoral students a broad field of activity for their scientific work. We conduct research in many projects together with partners from industry and business, which means that the research work is very application-oriented and enables doctoral students to make contact with industry and business at an early stage.

The Doctoral College NRW offers doctoral candidates a topic-specific doctoral program, which is generally designed to last 3 years. Together with doctoral candidates from other universities, doctoral candidates have the opportunity to learn and deepen their scientific work in a compulsory and optional area.

A cooperative doctorate always takes place in collaboration with a university or a university authorized to award doctorates and enables the doctoral candidates to combine theory-based and application-based research. The doctoral degree is awarded by the university or university of applied sciences. Our professors are equally involved in the doctoral process as supervisors, reviewers or examiners.

The doctoral college of our university is an interdisciplinary central contact and coordination point for doctoral students.

Please contact our professors if you are interested in pursuing a doctorate. They will advise you, support you and put you in contact with a cooperating university or university authorized to award doctorates.

I am doing a cooperative doctorate at the TU Dortmund and the Hochschule Niederrhein and have two supervisors from the respective faculties. In terms of content, I am working on optimization potential for the "last mile", i.e. for small-scale distribution using the example of fashion shipments from e-commerce.(Since the volume of goods and transport in inner-city conurbations is rising sharply due to growing e-commerce, courier, express and parcel service providers (CEP) are confronted with an increased volume of shipments, and not only since the market shift caused by the pandemic. The "last mile" generates high costs, contributes to emissions and further external transport costs, and should be made more customer-friendly and sustainable. Additional challenges can arise when transporting apparel, such as handling hanging garments. Innovative delivery concepts are needed, which promise success for CEP and at the same time create sustainable added value for city logistics). Parallel to this, I am working as a researcher at the Center Textile Logistics. At the same time, I work as a research assistant at the Textile Logistics Center at FB07 and can combine the contents of the doctorate with the work on practical orientation research projects. The cooperative PhD offers a great opportunity to benefit from a large university research environment and at the same time to use the learned expertise of the university studies in a familiar environment.

"It is exciting to be working for The Hochschule Niederrhein in the field of Textile and Clothing Technology in times of such great upheaval in the textile industry. There are many challenges. The shift toward sustainable and digital production is in full swing, and topics like artificial intelligence are coming on strong." As a doctoral student at The Hochschule Niederrhein, Lennart is working on the future - his and that of the textile industry. Lennart studied mechanical engineering in Aachen, specializing in automotive engineering. Textiles have already played a role throughout his studies. For his Bachelor's thesis, for example, he worked on a textile sensor system for crash tests, and in his master's thesis he developed a sensor-integrated fiber plastic structure for car body construction. "Textiles are around us in all areas of life. In technical developments alone, the influence is impressive. It is precisely this diversity that is the great attraction for me." For his doctorate, he is looking at how artificial intelligence can be used to make production processes for textiles much more efficient and thus more sustainable. Research is being conducted on a model for parameter correlation of textile production processes based on an artificial neural network. Such a model is able, for example, to simplify the, until now very complex, adjustment process of production machines and thus save costs, material and time. "I am very much looking forward to the exciting and innovative projects within the scope of my doctorate. The Hochschule Niederrhein offers an optimal environment for me to do so."

At the Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology at the Hochschule Niederrhein in Mönchengladbach, it is possible to do a cooperative doctorate after completing a master's degree. The mixture of theoretical and applied research makes the doctorate at the Hochschule Niederrhein very attractive for me. I attended the Master's degree programme Textile Products Textile and wrote my master's thesis at a large German car manufacturer. As a partner university for a cooperative doctorate on knitted technical textiles, the TU Dresden was the first port of call. Due to the close cooperation with my supervisor at the Hochschule Niederrhein and the supervisors at the TU Dresden, all research results are discussed and advanced several times a year. I was able to complete all necessary qualifications, such as participation in teaching education, at the Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology.

In principle, cooperative doctoral studies are possible with any university or institution of higher education in Germany or abroad that is authorized to award doctorates. Our professors will assist you in establishing contact.

Our active partner universities include, for example:

• TU Dortmund
• TU Dresden, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Ruhr University Bochum
• University of Gent / Universiteit Gent
• Université de Haute-Alsace, Mulhouse
• RWTH, Faculty of Chemistry (DWI - Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Aachen)
• University of Duisburg-Essen