The International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course (LIFE) is a joint international PhD Program of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and the University of Zurich.

The goal of the Research School is 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 takes an integrative and interdisciplinary approach to understanding human development in a changing world, connecting evolutionary, ontogenetic, historical, and institutional perspectives. The focus is on the evolution and interaction of individual and institutional development.

LIFE offers students unique training in the dynamics of human behavior on different time scales. These include long-term changes, such as in the evolution of culture and emergence of institutions of learning, and short-term changes, such as in individual education processes, lifespan development, and institutionally regulated life-course processes. The curriculum combines psychology, educational science, neuroscience, and biology, focussing especially on the dynamics of human behavior on different time scales.