Doctoral Procedure

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. 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 outside the European Union: certificates of the academic degrees including a transcript of records, diploma supplement, master thesis and this form.

Here you find some faq

The Biology Doctoral Committee will decide about the admission at their meetings at the end of each month (except August and December). All documents have to be in the Academic Office one week before  meeting.

 Upon acceptance by the Doctoral Committee, you must enrol with your acceptance letter by the end of the semester following your admission Services for Students (enrolment instructions, PDF). In accordance with § 70 (5) of the Hamburg Higher Education Act (HmbHG) you must remain enroled at Universität Hamburg until your disputation.

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 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 If unpublished papers form part of the thesis, the candidate must indicate his or her specific contribution.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 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.

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) Technical specifications

There are no rules on font, size, line spacing etc. If you have any questions, please contact your supervisor.

To ensure that your dissertation can be sent to the examiners immediately after submission, we recommend having the reviewer and examination commission appointed by the Departmental Doctoral Committee before the submission. The Departmental Doctoral Committee meets at the end of each month (except August and December). The application (see below) must be submitted to the Academic Office Biology no later than one week prior to the meeting in order to be treated at the meeting.

• Log in to Docata
• fill in the required entries (this will take some time; your dissertation will be uploaded later by us)
• 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 and the Department Biology.

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.

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 find the information under point three in this side.

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—two weeks
• Arranging a date for the oral defense with the examination committee
• display of the evaluations and invitation period—at least one week

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.

Should you not be able to complete your promisson procedure within the admission deadline (graduation is the disputation), you must submit an informal application for renewal to the Biology Office three months before the end of the deadline. This application must be accompanied by a statement of reasons and must also be signed by the supervisor.

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 after your disputation.