A collaborative graduate study program between the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, the Humboldt-University in Berlin, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

The goal of the research school is to provide international training experiences in the study of the systematic changes in human behavior over evolutionary and ontogenetic time. The general approach is aimed at advancing the behavioral and social science of human development. LIFE will take an integrative and interdisciplinary approach to understanding human development in a changing world, connecting evolutionary, ontogenetic, historical, and institutional approaches. The focus is on the evolution and interaction of individual and institutional development.

The program recruits doctoral and postdoctoral students from one of the relevant disciplines (biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, educational science, natural resource, and other relevant disciplines) who are interested in a life course perspective in human behavior. As an international and interdisciplinary program, LIFE offers students unique training in the dynamics of human behavior on different time scales and will include opportunities for research abroad at a cooperating institution. The program involves students at UM, the University of Virginia, The Max Plank Institute for Human Development, Humboldt University, the Free University of Berlin and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. For UM students, participation involves participating in classes and seminars, attending four 1 week academies over the course of two years and developing collaborative research projects.