Procedure and Forms

Choosing a Subject - Searching a Supervisor - Organising a Mentorship

Choosing a research subject and a mentoring professor is the first step in the doctoral procedure. You can choose from all current research subjects on the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy Search. External placements are also possible.

Whether or not additional mentors will support you in your doctoral research will be decided in consultation with your main supervisor. 1-3 mentors are possible. During the doctoral procedure, your mentor(s) provides professional scientific advice, promotes scientific development and ensures the compliance of the supervision agreement.

Acception as a Doctoral Student

Process Scheme

Your doctoral studies start with your official acceptence as a doctoral student. The following documents must be submitted to the Office of the Dean for this purpose:

1. Academic Degree Certificate
   Please consider the Process Scheme.  
2. Copies of the following (originals must be presented in the Office of the Dean upon submission):
   Higher education entrance qualification,
   Academic Degree, Degree Certificate, (see 1.),
   all certificates of state examinations, if any,
   Confirmation of period of study/Transcript of Records with marks
   If you have not yet received your Master's certificates, please submit a provisional certificate from the Examinations Office (JMU-Unit 2.3) Nand submit the certificates as soon as they are issued to you.
3. Supervisory Agreement
4. Acceptance (to become a doctoral student)

Acceptance at the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy will take place as soon as all required documents have been submitted. You will be issued by a written acknowledgement which has to be presented immediately to Unit 1.2 International Students Office.

Enrolment 

Enrolment is compulsory for doctoral students at the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg (see University Regulations for Doctoral Studies). Keep in mind the Unit 2.2  Student Affairsprescribed enrolment period. Doctoral Studies are treated like a degree programme with open admission. In addition to the  required documents, you will also need to submit the confirmation of your acceptance as a doctoral student at the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy issued by the Office of the Dean. 

Please hand in the enrolment certificate as soon as possible to the Office of the Dean.

Special Procedure

Foreign Applicants

Process Scheme

Applicants from abroad have to consider special rules for the execution of the procedure.

Foreign applicants' documents have to be checked by the Office of the Dean first. The following documents have to be submitted:

• higher education entrance qualification
• graduate Diploma/Master/Magister Certificate (english version if applicable official translation agency)
• undergraduate Diploma/Bachelor Certificate (english version if applicable official translation agency)
• Transcript of Records Bachelor/Master or other reports that show modules, achievements, ECTS and marks (english version if applicable official translation agency)
• Curriculum Vitae - gap-free
• list of puplications, shown to the intended supervisor
• Master Thesis, shown to the intended supervisor

Applicants with foreign degrees: Check if university and degree are on ANABIN, the homepage of ZAB. That's the Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen in Bonn/Central Office for Foreign Education of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in Bonn. If not, you have to request a long form of the certificate evaluation from ZAB  ZAB-Certificate  that confirms the Master's/Diploma equivalence of your degree. (Attention - the costs are borne by the applicant! A recognition grant is possible, if applicable.)

If the degree is listed in the Anabin database but no ZAB-Certificate (long form) can be submitted, applicants from China, Vientnam and India must compulsorily submit an APS certificate from their respective embassy.

For more information, please consult the following websites:

• Welcome Guide Information of the Service Center of International Affairs
• Admission foreign students: Website of the International Students Office  

External dissertation preparation, binational doctoral procedure, degree preliminary recognition by conditions

If your thesis shall mainly be done at an external research institution and not at a chair or institute of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, you must have 3 mentors.  The same applies to processes with preliminary recognition with conditions and binational doctoral procedures. Written notification of the supervision agreement must be provided prior to commencement of research. 

Regular meetings should take place between the student and the mentors during the doctoral process to ensure continual communication.

In coordination between the student and the mentorship, an updating of the supervisory agreement for the adaption of the progress is possible. The continued supervision agreement must be submitted to the Office of the Dean and will be attached to the doctoral file.

If there is a delay in the end of the doctoral process, a request for an extension of the enrollment period can be submitted to the Office of the Dean.

In case of an interruption or leave of absence, please inform the Office of the Dean and hand in a request form.

Procedures concerning which started after 6 Ju.y 2022: In the case of a doctoral period that exceeds the total period of 6 years, an application for an extension of the total doctoral period must be submitted to the Office of the Dean. The assessment basis is the start of the doctoral procedure or the acceptance as a doctoral candidate according to the supervision agreement.

Writing your Dissertation

Whenever all research work is done, a doctoral thesis, following the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, must be written:

• printed manuscript (appropriate quality for duplication not larger than format DIN A4, printed double-sided)
• electronic version of the dissertation
• dissertation has to be submitted in English or German (supervisor's approval required)
• all respective applied literature and other sources have to be cited correctly
• text passages taken (close to) verbatim from external sources have to be indicated
• the dissertation has to be presented tightly binded (no spiral binding), page numbers have to be indicated
• an individually designed cover is permitted

Dissertation must contain the following items:

1. Cover sheet
2. second page with list of the reviewers and examiners of the thesis
3. Table of Contents
4. Introduction
5. Main Section: representation of research results in monographic, cumulative or partially cumulative form
6. Summary in English or German
7. Bibliography
8. In the case of a cumulative or partially cumulative Dissertation, you must submit the forms created by the Doctoral Committee to show your own parts (the form "percentages" has to be included into the dissertation)

Defence Admission

After submission of all required documents to the Office of the Dean (place, date, original signature), you will get the admission for your doctoral examination (defence). A route card will be handed over - necessary for further process.

• Application (Admission for Defence)
• 1 Copy of Dissertation for the Office of the Dean - printed manuscript (10 Copies in total)
  1 Copy in electronic format (pdf) for the Office of the Dean  Cover Page
• Statement from the Mentors - relating to the supervisory statement
• if Dissertation is cumulative or partially cumulative:
  - Form Authorship
  - Form Percentages
    (please additionally include this form into the dissertation)
  - Form Acknowledge
• Assurance
• Copyright Statement
• Curriculum Vitae (detailed CV)
• 1 x List of Publications (updated register indicating complete bibliographic data)
• Original - Good-Conduct Certificate for Authorities -  intended use: Promotion / PhD
  German citizens: Certificate applied for at a city or municipality administration
  it must say: "zur Vorlage bei einer Behörde nach § 30 Abs. 5 BZRG"
  Sent directly from the Federal Office of Justice to the Office of the Dean!
  Citizens from other european countries: Supplemental the European certificate of good conduct must also be applied for.
  Citizens from other countries: The official certificate of good conduct customary in these countries
  (e.g. from a Criminal Investigation Department) must be submitted.
• Notification Sheet final exams - Unit 2.2 Student Affairs

  (according to degree/subject WueStudy course of studies)

• in case of binational doctoral studies, a signed cooperation agreement

Reviewing

The Dean is responsible for determining who will review the Dissertation. The process runs from the Office of the Dean.

As soon as the experts' reports have been sent to the Office of the Dean, circulation will start. Your thesis is made available to all professors of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy. This will take approximately 3 weeks. You and your supervisor will be kept informed through an automatic e-mail from the Office of the Dean.

Public Defence

Defence will take place 3 weeks after the circulation procedure, at the earliest. For preparation the Office of the Dean needs to be notified of:

- examiners (supervisor's proposal)
- fixed date
- time
- place (lecture room - booking through Office of the Dean)
- minute keeper (must be a person already in possession of a doctoral degree)

Parties involved will get an official invitation sent by the Office of the Dean at the latest 7 days before the defence.  Defence is about showing that the candidate has mastered the research field of the thesis as well as relevant subject areas. Defence lasts from 75 up to at most 120 minutes. The leader of the public doctoral examination should be one of the examiners, usually the supervisor. In the first approximately 30 minutes, the candidate has to present the content of the Dissertation. Following, examiners will ask questions regarding the thesis and relevant subject areas. The leader takes care that all examiners have an equal time for questions.

The defence is normally open to the public. In duly substantiated exceptional cases, defence can take place via camera or can be limited to a narrowly confined group of audiences. This action may be granted upon request and on decision of the leader of the examination, particularly if rights or claims of third-parties conflict.

Minutes of the defence shall be drawn up by a recorder.

Subsequently, the candidate gets a provisional examination certificate.

Examination Grades

After the conclusion of the doctoral procedure, the leader of the examination will hand over an examination certificate to the candidate. It includes the grading of the dissertation, the evaluation of the defence, and the overall grade of the doctoral examination. Important: at this point the candidate is not entitled to use the academic degree and the title of a "Doktor der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.)" which is equivalent to a PhD. (Doctorate will be awarded after obligatory submission of the dissertation copies to the University Library.) 

Each individual test component (thesis and defence) the following marks can be given:

• 1.0 very good = a performance about average;
• 1.3 very good minus - 
• 1.7 good plus + 
• 2.0 good = a performance that meets average requirements in every respect; 
• 2.3 good minus  - 
• 2.7 satisfactory plus + 
• 3.0 satisfactory = a performance that apart from a few shortcomings still fulfils the requirements;
   
• 4.0 failed =a performance that suffers from considerable deficiencies and no longer usable.
   

In case of an excellent dissertation, in addition to the grade '1.0' a special predicate 'with distinction' can be given.

The total evaluation of the defence is calculated from the arithmetic average of all marks given by the examiners keeping two decimal digits without rounding (all further digits are dropped).

For the overall grade of the doctoral examination, a mark with two decimal digits without rounding will be given. It is calculated by doubling the grade of your thesis, adding the total evaulation of the defence, and dividing the total by three.

The overall grade of the doctoral examination is:

• from 1.00 to 1.49 very good (corresponds with the Latin magna cum laude)
• from 1.50 to 2.49 good (corresponds with the Latin cum laude) 
• from  2.50 to 3.49 satisfactory (corresponds with the Latin rite)

If the total grade of the examination is '1.00' and all examiners award the dissertation 'with distinction' then the overall grade of the docotoral examination will also be given the special ranking 'with distinction' which corresponds with the Latin summa cum laude.

Dissertation Publication

Upon passing the doctoral examination, the student is required to submit a final approved version, which can only differ from the reviewed and circulated version in a purely editorial nature. Printing and reproducing of the final thesis is at the student's own expense.

Within one year of the defence, 5 copies of the dissertation must be submitted at the University Library free of charge. These copies must be durablly-bound on age-resistant, acid- and wood-free paper. 

Furthermore, an identical version, matching the specified data format, has to be uploaded via the University Library interface (OPUS) .

If applicable, a temporary application for  Non-Publication of up to one year is possible, if there are reasons against immediate publication, e.g. patent law considerations, see § 15 para. 5 Doctoral Regulations. Please send the application form to the Office of the Dean and the University Library. For a further postponement beyond this period, a justified application to the Doctoral Committee is required, which should first be submitted to the Office of the Dean for approval.

Doctoral Certificate

After publication, the route card has to be submittet to the Office of the Dean. After signature of the President and the Dean, a Report as well as a Doctoral Certificate will be awarded to the candidate. Date of issue is the day you hand in the obligatory copies of your dissertation to the University Library, the final step fo the doctoral procedure.

We further request that you provide a statistical form regarding your career after your doctorate.

It will take approx. two weeks before you can collect the report and the certificate at the Office of the Dean. If you cannot pick it up personally, these can be given to an authorised person, provided they can present a passport and written letter of proxy.

If this is not possible, your documents will be sent as registered mail to your home address. Collection will be possible at your local post office, either by you or an official proxy.