Department of Biology
Doctoral Procedure
Doctoral procedure at the department biology after the doctoral degree regulations and the Implementation rules of the departmental doctoral committee of Biology
Short instruction for the administrative procedure for a doctorate
1. Apply for admission to doctoral procedure upon starting the doctoral project
Please complete the online application (Docata) for admission to the doctoral procedure and print it out. Make sure your application includes all required signatures before submitting it to the Academic Office of the Department of Biology. For information on doctoral supervisors in the Department of Biology, please refer to the bottom of this page. Your online application must include the following documents:
- outline of your research project (research proposal form; PDF)
- copy of your identity card
- the supervision agreement (PDF)
- admission qualifications (e.g., Bachelor and Master certificate; if applicable, recognition of other degrees)
- higher education entrance certificate
- only if you academic degree are made outsite the European Union: certificates of the academic degrees including a transcript of records, diploma supplement, master thesis and this form.
The Biology Doctoral Committee will decide abou the admission at their meetings at the end of each month (except August and December). Alls documents have to be in the Academic office one week before meeting , latest
Upon acceptance by the Doctoral Committee, you must enroll with your acceptance letter by the end of the semester following your admission Services for Students (enrollment instructions, PDF). In accordance with § 70 (5) of the Hamburg Higher Education Act (HmbHG) you must remain enrolled at Universität Hamburg for the entire doctoral period (i.e., until you have received your doctoral certificate or provisional doctoral transcript).
IMPORTANT: Eligibility requirements for supervisors
The supervision is regulated in section 6 of the Doctoral Degree Regulations. At least one supervisor or a panel of supervisors, consisting of three people:
- At least one habilitiert Member or professor of the Department Biology (Section 6 subsection 3 + Implementation rules)
- External supervisors must have been granted the right to participate in doctoral procedures as supervisors in cooperation agreements or have to appoint it by the doctoral committee of the Department Biology (section 6, subsection 4, first or third bullet)
- researchers holding a doctoral degree must fulfill the criteria of the doctoral committee:
In justified individual cases, researchers holding a doctoral degree may be authorized to act as examiners for the written evaluation of a dissertation. They must qualify as follows:
- They must have completed their own doctoral studies at least five years earlier (proven with a doctoral degree).
- They must have published at least eight peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals related to the topic of the dissertation to be supervised (four of which as the first/lead author).
- They must have supervised at least three graduate theses (Diplomarbeiten, master's theses, doctoral dissertations). A principal supervisor must confirm in writing co-supervision of a thesis.
- They must provide two references (including email and phone number).
Doctoral candidates must submit all required documents together with their applications for admission to a doctoral degree as well as providing electronic copies thereof to the Biology Academic Office. The latter is intended to accelerate admission procedures.
2. two until four weeks before submission of the dissertation
- Log in to Docata
- fill in the required entries (this will take some time)
- print the form
- one of your supervisors and you have to sign.
- Submit the form to the Academic Office Biologie
Important:
- One of your examiners has to be (one of) your supervisor(s).
- One of your examiners has to be professor of the faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences.
The majority of the examination commission should be faculty members from the Department of Biology. The departmental doctoral committee is responsible for ensuring that the examination commission has a well-balanced composition. Wherever possible, commission members should come from different working groups or fields and, if required, an additional member should be appointed or a proposed member substituted. The majority of the members of the examination commission should not be comprised of examiners (Gutachter) of the dissertation.
The examination commission consists of at least three persons who can act as supervisors and the majority must be professor:
- Head: habilitiert member or professor of the faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences
- (Head) habilitiert member or professor of the Universität Hamburg
- habiltiert researcher or researcher holding a doctoral degree who was authorized to act as examiners (secretary)
- optional or obligatory (see the Implementation rules of the departmental doctoral committee of Biology)
- optional
3. Submission of the dissertation
Please submit the following documents to the Academic Office with your dissertation:
- dissertation in triplicate
- PDF-version on CD-ROM (no raw data, etc., if possible not more than 10MB)
If you have not submit the dissertation submission form before, you have to submit it together with your dissertation. Please log in to Docata, fill in the required entries (this will take some time), print the form, one of your carers and you have to sign, submit biology to the Academic Office.
PLEASE NOTE:
Important: Formalities for the dissertation
In accordance with § 7 of the Doctoral Degree Regulations, “The doctoral thesis (dissertation) should attest to the capacity for in-depth, independent research and document progress in scientific knowledge on the basis of notable findings worthy of publication”.
1) Form
“a) A dissertation comprised of a single, coherent description of research work and results. If unpublished papers form part of the thesis, the candidate must indicate his or her specific contribution. Please see the criteria for properly indicating original work in b).
or
A cumulative dissertation consisting of individual papers, collectively equivalent to a dissertation in accordance with a) (cf. §7 of the Doctoral Degree Regulations). In accordance with the rule of procedure issued by the Departmental Doctoral Committee of Biology, a cumulative dissertation must comprise at least two publications accepted in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The doctoral candidate must be the first author of the publication at least once. For each publication, the doctoral candidate’s contribution must be explained in detail, on a separate sheet of paper, and approved and signed by the doctoral supervisor. In particular, doctoral candidates are obligated to state their contribution in terms of conception, experiment realization (which experiments have been conducted), data evaluation and the writing of the first version of the manuscript. Non-published data or data not intended for publication may be appended as a further chapter of the cumulative dissertation in the form of a scientific publication. The publications and further chapters must originate from a common topic and may not date back more than 4 years. The doctoral candidate should state the scientific context in the introduction (at least 10 pages) and discuss it in the final discussion of all chapters (at least 15 pages). There are no requirements regarding type sizes, font types, page margins, structure, etc.
There is not set specification for font size, font style, margins, structure, etc. You can find a sample sheet for the front page here.
2) Language
The dissertation can be written in English or German. An informal request may only be made with the Departmental Doctoral Committee if any other language is used. A native speaker (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland) must confirm the linguistic accuracy of a dissertation if it appears as a monograph in English.
3) Declaration on oath
Do not forget the signed declaration on oath. There has to be the german text and your signatur in each copy.
4) Dissertation publication
A CD-Rom with a PDF format of the dissertation and 3 deposit copies have to be submitted. The copies must be printed on permanent, wood- and acid-free paper in a permanent binding (no ring binding).
4. Oral defense date
Oral defense dates will be allocated/accepted when the examination committee has graded the dissertation.
Please plan for respective procedural stages as follows:
- authorization of supervisors and appointment of the examination committee by the doctoral committee at the end of each month (except August and December)
- evaluations—six weeks max
- acceptance of the dissertation and grading by the examination committee—2 weeks
- Arranging a date for the oral defense with the examination committee
- display of the evaluations and invitation period—at least two weeks
Once you have been informed of the examination committee's decision, please arrange a date with the examination committee and submit the
Oral Defense Registration Form (PDF) Note: you can leave the fields Building and Room empty.
5. Publication and doctoral degree certificate
After the disputation, you will receive a form (helpful information) with all the necessary information. For all kinds of publication envisaged on the form, the doctoral student will give a copy to the library of the Departments Biology and, if necessary, a copy to the Academic Office (this will be explained after the disputation). The faculty doctoral committee recommends the electronic publication of the thesis. Hand in the form with the necessary signatures in the study office. After receipt of the quittance of the Stabi the certificate can be issued. The creation of the certificate can take up to 2 months.