Information on the doctoral procedure

Please note that changes to your master data (address, name, gender) are not automatically transferred to the university systems. Please always notify the Examination Office, the Registrar's Office and any other relevant entities immediately of any respective changes during your doctoral studies.

First of all, you will need the registration form for the doctorate and the statistical questionnaire. If the doctorate is not your first degree within the German education system (i.e. Abitur/university entrance qualification, Bachelor's, Master's obtained in Germany), please use the German statistical questionnaire.

Apply for your doctorate early, preferably at the start of your research project. Even in the best case there will pass at least one month between submitting your application and being admitted to doctoral studies. 

Please complete and submit all documents to the Examination Office as described below. We will then take care of forwarding the relevant documents to the dean, the doctoral committee and the supervising professorship.

Registration Form

You fill in the registration form for the doctorate as follows:

• Page 1 above the solid line (up to "To be filled by Prüfungsamt").
• Page 3 up to and including "Signature of the PhD candidate".
• Page 4 up to and including "Supervisors".

On Page 2 you will find a list of all required documents/information. The individual points are briefly explained below:

1. The curriculum vitae must be dated and signed. 
2. If your transcript is from JLU, an uncertified copy is sufficient. Otherwise, it must be officially certified and, if necessary, translated into German or English. Alternatively, you can present the originals to us at the Examination Office so that we can officially confirm that they match the copies. 
3. This could be, for example, your Bachelor's degree certificate. These are only state or academic examinations, i.e. no school certificates or similar.
4. A short, informal note or even a handwritten note on the form itself is sufficient. A copy/scan of the letter confirming the premature termination of the previous doctoral procedure must be submitted if you have already started another doctorate.
5. Ask your proposed first supervisor to add a sentence to his/her written statement (item 9) confirming that you have sufficient knowledge of German or English.
6. The list of scientific publications can also be part of the curriculum vitae. In this case, please make a short note on the form itself.
7. Can be part of the statement (item 9) and must be signed by you and the supervisor. There is no template for this.
8. Simply enter the name on the application form.
9. Must be signed by the supervisor. Please let your supervisor use this template. Please note the requirements of the doctoral degree regulations.
10. Simply enter your signature on the application form. You can find the Statutes of Justus-Liebig-University Giessen for ensuring good scientific practice here.
11. Does not necessarily have to be submitted (but may be required by the DFG, for example). Must be submitted in addition to item 9 if applicable. 
12. Irrelevant for doctorates at faculties 07 or 08.
13. Please do not forget to fill in the statistics form statistical questionnaire (English or German, the latter in case the doctorate is not your first degree within the German education system).

Statistical Questionnaire

• If the doctorate you are aiming for is your first degree in the German education system, please use the English statistical questionnaire. If you have obtained at least one degree in the German education system (higher education entrance qualification, e.g. Abitur, Bachelor, master or similar), please complete the German statistical questionnaire.
• Please note the filling aid for the questionnaire regardng questions 21, 22, 27, and 28.

The preparation of a cumulative dissertation must be applied for in due course, in particular before submission of the dissertation. Please use our application form for this purpose. This application can only be submitted if you can present a corresponding number of publications. Please refer to our information page on cumulative dissertations.

Please note that changes to your master data (address, name, gender) are not automatically transferred to the university systems. Please always notify the Examination Office, the Registrar's Office and any other relevant entities immediately of any respective changes during your doctoral studies.

It is always advisable to send your (preferred) examination committee to the Examination Office by email before submitting your dissertation. We will then try to have your committee approved in advance in order to speed up the subsequent processes. For this purpose, we need the following information from you for all committee members:

• Full name and title
• Institute (faculty, if applicable)
• the associated examination subject/discipline
• for external members: all contact details (name, title, institute, address, email, subject area, as well as a link to the current website)
• When putting together your examination committee, please note that all committee members must be habilitated (otherwise special permission is required). You must specify at least 3 different examination subjects in which you are being examined (under "Field") and at least one assessor and one examiner must belong to Faculty 07 or 08.

If we have any questions regarding your preferred committee, we will contact you. Otherwise, you will not receive any feedback on this request. If you would like to ensure that your committee has been approved before submitting your dissertation, please contact Ms Wiltheis.

Please note that changes to your master data (address, name, gender) are not automatically transferred to the university systems. Please always notify the Examination Office, the Registrar's Office and any other relevant entities immediately of any respective changes during your doctoral studies.

Strictly speaking, the submission of the dissertation and the registration for the defense are two separate processes, which should, however, take place at the same time. In addition, the doctoral procedure can only be finalised once we have received the doctoral fees of EUR 150 (IBAN: DE98 5005 0000 0001 0065 50, BIC: HELADEFF, reason for payment: Dr. rer. nat. surname, first name).

Submission of the Dissertation

•  Prerequisite for submission is the registration of the doctorate and, if applicable, the application for and approval of a cumulative dissertation.
• Please declare the thesis as a JLU dissertation and integrate the affidavit from the doctoral degree regulations and make sure that a German and an English abstract are included in the thesis (see guidelines for doctoral regulations at JLU Giessen, section 1.1). Submit 5 copies of the printed dissertation to us together with the forms for registration for the defese and statistics on stays abroad. We will stamp all copies with a stamp of receipt and return 4 copies to you for distribution to the examination board.
• In addition to the 5 printed copies of your dissertation, please also send us a digitally searchable version (pdf, no larger than 15 MB) by email.
• We are not allowed to accept ring bindings. Please bind your work in another form.

Registration of the Defense

• Fill out the form to apply to open examination procedures and the statistical questionnaire on stays abroad (even if none were undertaken).
• If your examination committee has not already been approved in advance, please note that all committee members must be habilitated when putting together your examination committee (otherwise special permission is required). You must specify at least 3 different examination subjects in which you are being examined (under "Field") and at least one assessor and one examiner must belong to Faculty 07 or 08.
• Submit the above-mentioned forms (application to open examination procedures and statistical questionnaire on stays abroad), together with 5 printed copies of your dissertation, with integrated signed affidavit, to the Examinations Office. We stamp all copies with a receipt stamp and return 4 copies to you for distribution to the examination board.
• If one of the reviewers/examiners is an external and/or retired professor, please provide us with their full address and email address.
• We then submit your examination committee to the dean and the chair of the doctoral committee for approval and request the reports from the two listed assessors.
• Once we receive the last dissertation report, 2 days later we will lay out the dissertation for inspection by the group of professors. The inspection period is 2 weeks during the lecture period and 4 weeks during the semester break. If part of the inspection period overlaps with the semester break, the deadline is also 4 weeks. Since there must be at least one week between the announcement of the date of the disputation and the disputation itself, the defense can be scheduled at the earliest one week after the announcement. (In short: There are at least 3.5 or 5.5 weeks between the receipt of the final dissertation report and the date of the disputation)
• Please note: You, as a doctoral candidate, may only inspect your reports in the examination office after the expiry of the display period.
• Once you have fixed a date for the defense, in agreement with the committee, please inform us as soon as possible. Please state the date, time and complete address (incl. room number).
• You can find the corresponding room data in JLUmaps, you can check the room availability via the room search in Stud.IP. If you do not have Stud.IP access, please contact the room allocation office of the relevant department directly (FB07: raumvergabe, FB08: rv-fb08).
• The defense must take place within half a year after the end of the inspection period of the doctoral thesis, otherwise the doctoral examination is failed.

• After the defense, you may still have to fulfil conditions/requirements imposed by your examiners, or make other changes to your dissertation due to a planned publication by a publisher (book, journal), after which you publish your thesis.
  You will be notified of any requirements in writing by the chairperson of your examination board. Once you have fulfilled the requirements, send the updated version of your dissertation in a digitally searchable format (PDF, no larger than 15 MB) by email to the chairperson of your examination board, copying in the Natural Sciences Examination Office.
  As soon as you receive approval to publish your dissertation from the aforementioned board member, send us the signed declaration regarding the publication of the dissertation.
• Publication must take place within one year of passing the desense, unless there is a blocking notice. If the doctoral candidate culpably misses the set deadline, the rights acquired through the doctoral performance expire. Please refer to the current guidelines for doctoral regulations at JLU Giessen for available publication options.
• The final version of the dissertation is deemed to have been made accessible to the academic public in an appropriate manner if the author delivers appropriate deposit copies to the university library free of charge (section 4.3 of the guidelines for doctoral regulations at JLU Giessen). Please refer to the relevant information provided by the University Library.

You will receive your certificate from us in person or by post as soon as

• the University Library has informed us that you have published your dissertation,
• we have received the signed declaration regarding the publication of the dissertation, and
• we have received the doctoral fees in the amount of 150 EUR (IBAN: DE98 5005 0000 0001 0065 50 BIC: HELADEFF Verwendungszweck: Promotion zum Dr. rer. nat. Last Name, First Name)