Oral Examination Procedure Before submission/examination
Is your acceptance as doctoral student still valid?
With your application for admission to the doctoral examination, you must prove that you have been accepted as a doctoral candidate at the faculty. If not, you have to apply for an extension of your acceptance as a doctoral candidate at the Dean's Office of the Faculty (Ms. Sandbrink, room 513) in due time.
If you are not or no longer accepted as a doctoral student of the faculty and intend to pursue a doctorate, please contact the Dean's Office (Ms. Sandbrink, Room 513) of the faculty immediately.
Selection of evaluator/referee
As a rule, one of the two reviewers should be the supervisor. You may contact the other reviewer yourself. You may also consult with your supervisor. Please inform your reviewers that the reviews must be submitted to the Dean's Office at least 3 weeks before the examination date.
Please also note that your proposed reviewers must be approved by the doctoral committee. Likewise, an external reviewer or additional external examiner must be approved by the doctoral examination committee. If you wish to do so, please submit an informal application to the Dean's Office in good time.
Formal requirements for dissertations
The dissertation has to be printed on acid-free paper with durable binding (e.g. no spiral binding). It has to include (in the following order):
- cover sheet
- an abstract in German and English (This abstract doesn’t replace the actual summary of your thesis)
- your scientific work with reference list
- the handwritten signed „sworn affidavit“ stating that you are the sole author of the submitted dissertation and that you have not made use of any sources or resources apart from those. This statement should be included at the end
Cumulative dissertation
At the faculty there is the possibility to write a cumulative dissertation. Please see here for further information and specifics of each department.
Examination date
All documents are to be handed in at the Dean's Office 5 weeks before the examination date by appointment with Mrs. Antimisaris.
Usually no oral examinations take place during the semester break of the summer term.
Before submitting all dissertation documents, agree on the day and time of the oral examination with your supervisor and the desired additional reviewer. This should be noted in the dissertation. Afterwards, the date must be coordinated with 2 further examiners. Thus, the doctoral examination committee consists of 4 examiners and at least 3 different examination subjects.
The examination board (note the form!) must be approved by the doctoral committee.
Examination subjects
The examination board consists of 4 examiners. As a rule, 2 of them are the reviewers. In total, at least 3 different subject areas must be represented by the examiners.
For chemists:
In addition to the examination subjects of the two examiners, two further examination subjects can be proposed. The dean appoints the examiners for the other desired examination subjects immediately (after submission of the application for admission to the dean's office). Examination subjects and examiners are to be approved by the Dean.
You will be informed of the approved examiners. You agree on a binding date with them and notify the Dean's Office of the examination date agreed with all examiners. If the examiner proposed for the examination is not available, please ask the Dean's Office for another examiner.
For geoscientists / geographers:
You can also propose the two other examiners and their examination subjects in addition to your examiners. Your chosen examination board must be approved by the dean. You agree on the examination date of your disputation with the approved examiners and inform the Dean's Office of the examination date agreed with all examiners.