Doctorate at a Doctoral Center

Do you want to do a doctorate? Before you start a doctorate, we recommend that you consider the following. What are your motives for doing a doctorate? What conditions will you face during the doctoral period? Talk to your professor or other doctoral candidates as well as your family and friends. For those interested in doing a doctorate, we recommend the guidebook: "ZEIT Campus: Ratgeber Promotion 2023" (only available in German).

Do you have a dissertation topic in mind and are you interested in doing a doctorate at a university of applied sciences in Saxony-Anhalt? Our Speaker of Promoting Early Career Researchers, Sandra Dietzel, will be happy to provide you with both individual and general advice. On our website, you will also find information on financing options for the multi-year phase of your doctorate.

Find out about the specific admission requirements by reading the doctoral regulations of the respective Doctoral Center. The doctoral regulations form the legal basis for all doctorates and outline the requirements, rights and obligations of doctoral students.

You can find the professors at Merseburg University who are affiliated with the Doctoral Centers via SGW and IWIT. Get in touch with a potential supervisor from your research field. It is best to make an appointment for a consultation to present your topic to him/her. For initial contact, it is advisable to describe your project in as much detail as possible. If your first supervisor works at another university, please have a look at Hochschule Anhalt, Hochschule Harz, Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal.

Write an exposé that outlines your research project. Together with your supervisor, revise your draft and draw up a supervision or doctoral agreement with him/her.

As soon as you have drawn up a doctoral or supervision agreement, you can apply to the Doctoral Center for official acceptance as a doctoral student.

Fill in the Application for Acceptance and the Registration Form for the doctoral student statistics and enclose the supervision agreement, the exposé and the other required documents (see checklist). The application including all required documents must be submitted both by post and digitally to the contact person at the university where your first supervisor is located. It is essential that the postal and digital versions match exactly (e.g. certified certificates and documents must also be scanned in). If your supervisor is located at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, please send the documents as individual PDF files to Sandra Dietzel (sandra.dietzel@hs-merseburg.de) first digitally for preliminary review. You can only submit the final documents by post and digitally once you have received feedback on the review.

digitally to:
sandra.dietzel(at)hs-merseburg.de

by post to:
Hochschule Merseburg
University of Applied Sciences
Prorektorat für Forschung, Wissenstransfer und Existenzgründung
z.Hd. Sandra Dietzel
Eberhard-Leibnitz-Str. 2
06217 Merseburg.

The doctoral committee decides whether you will be accepted as a doctoral candidate at the Doctoral Center. You may be admitted under conditions, which you should fulfil in the course of your doctoral period. You will be informed about the decision by post.

You can enroll as a doctoral student whilst doing your doctorate. The advantage is that you have free access to the university's services, e.g. the university library and the refectory. In addition, as a doctoral student you will receive a Semester Ticket for use on local public transport (MDV) as well as various discounts, e.g. for admission or participation fees.

Enrollment is done via the online application form for degree programs (only available in German). To enroll, scroll to "Start" and follow the instructions. If you have any questions, please contact the Student Secretariat at Merseburg University.

Now the phase begins in which you focus on completing your doctorate. Usually, you have up to five years to do this. After five years, the doctoral committee decides whether you may continue with the dissertation or not.

Regular academic exchange with the person supervising you is particularly important. In this way, you can report on your progress, discuss partial results achieved and create an optimal result in the long term.

Maintaining a dialogue with your working group and participation in scientific colloquia is beneficial for your research work. While writing your PhD, attend at least two doctoral seminars and events organized by the Doctoral Center and adhere to the principles of good scientific practice when researching and writing.

The Graduate Academy of Merseburg University of Applied Sciences supports all doctoral researchers with an interdisciplinary qualification and consultation offers and with information on all aspects of doctoral studies. Take advantage of the wide range of options to guarantee the quality of your doctorate! Sign up here for the newsletter and stay informed about all offers of the graduate academy.

Once your dissertation is ready, submit an application to the Doctoral Examination Board for admission to the Doctoral Examination Procedure. To do this, submit your dissertation (and any other documents) in both printed and digital form. Please refer to the applicable doctoral regulations. The application for admission and initiation of the doctoral procedure at the Doctoral Center is available upon request from your responsible Speaker of Promoting Early Career Researchers. You can propose reviewers for your dissertation - one of the reviewers will be a member of the Doctoral Center and will fit your subject area. The other person will be an external reviewer who will assess your dissertation comprehensively in terms of its subject matter. Please note that your supervisor must not review your thesis. Inthis case, we are following a recommendation of the German Council of Science and Humanities to ensure the independence of the reviews.

The doctoral committee decides whether the doctoral procedure will be initiated. If the procedure is initiated, the committee appoints a doctoral committee for your doctoral procedure and appoints the reviewers of your thesis.

The reviewers then have eight weeks to review your dissertation. Once the reviews have been submitted with a proposal for evaluation, the thesis and the reviews are made available for inspection for two weeks. After that, the doctoral committee decides on the acceptance of the dissertation on the basis of the reviews. In exceptional cases, you may need to make additions or changes to your dissertation before it can be accepted; the doctoral committee will then set you a deadline for this.

No later than three months after acceptance of the dissertation, you must defend your dissertation publicly and orally before the doctoral committee. The committee consists of other professors as well as your supervisor(s) and the examiners. Before the disputation, you give a presentation lasting max. 30 minutes. Afterwards, you are examined for 60-90 minutes. The content is as follows: "The disputation involves a discussion of the content of the dissertation, including the expert opinions and also covers related problems of the subject and adjacent areas of other subjects as well as the state of research in them" (doctoral regulations of IWIT as well as SGW: §17, Section 7).

Straight after the disputation, you will get your overall grade (for the dissertation and disputation). This concludes the doctoral procedure.

Within two years after the disputation, publish your dissertation. If necessary, you should implement any conditions imposed on you by the doctoral committee after the disputation. Prior to publication, the chair of the doctoral committee approves the version ready for publication.

As soon as your dissertation has been published and the Doctoral Center has received the deposit copies, you will receive your doctoral certificate. Henceforth, you may use your doctoral title.

Congratulations!