On an institutional level, responsibility lies with the faculty. Formalities are the responsibility of the faculty’s doctoral affairs committee and faculty administration is responsible for practical matters.

Augsburg University’s Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences awards the title of a doctor of philosophy (Dr. phil.) on the basis of general doctoral regulations ( Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO) and doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences ( Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz).

Completing a doctoral degree at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences requires your doctoral thesis project to be accepted by an authorised supervisor employed at Augsburg University’s Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (section 2 of the PromOPhilSoz). You and your supervisor will need to conclude a supervision agreement (Betreuungsvereinbarung) (section 4 of the PromOPhilSoz). The standing doctoral affairs committee (Ständiger Promotionsauschuss) will provide you with a template for the supervision agreement.

The faculty’s standing doctoral affairs committee is responsible for all decisions pertaining to doctoral procedures at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. Faculty administration supports the doctoral affairs committee.

If you take classes at the university as part of preparing for your doctorate, you need to be enrolled. However, enrolment is not a requirement for admission to doctoral procedure.

A professor or habilitated member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences will support you with regard to the contents of your doctoral thesis project. You and your supervisor will agree on the specifics of their supervision when you conclude the supervision agreement at the start of your doctoral research.

At the start of your doctoral research, you and your supervisor will discuss the contents of your doctoral thesis project at length. As part of this, you will create a convincing outline containing nuanced information on your research question, the area of research to which you want to contribute and your methodological approach, as well as a schedule of the time in which you plan to complete your research (minimum requirement). More detailed information on how to write an outline is easily available online – your supervisor will remind you of the most important aspects.

Based on this outline, you and a university teacher at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences will conclude a supervision agreement for your doctoral research project. The form for the supervision agreement contains the crucial agreements that doctoral candidates and supervisors must make and can be supplemented with further, individual agreements that must be made in writing.

You, the doctoral candidate, need to apply for admission to doctoral procedure at our faculty in order for the doctoral procedure (consisting largely of a review of your doctoral thesis followed by your defence) to begin. An application form ( Zulassungsantrag) is available for this purpose and must be submitted together with your doctoral thesis.

When you begin working on your doctoral thesis, you do not need to apply for admission yet, but you do need to create an outline of your doctoral research project which will form the basis of a supervision agreement with a university teacher from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences to secure the supervision of your doctoral research.

At the start of your doctoral research, once you have refined your topic, you will conclude a supervision agreement (section 4 of the PromOPhilSoz) with a university teacher from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. To do so, you will need to create an outline of your doctoral research project and submit this alongside the supervision agreement.

Once the supervision agreement is concluded, you can apply for a binding partial decision ( verbindliche Teilentscheidung – section 4 (2) of the PromOPhilSoz). You can find more information on which documents you will need to submit to the Dean’s Office for this purpose in section 7 of the APromO.

Beyond this, the following documents are necessary to apply for admission to a doctoral procedure:

• Your application for a binding partial decision, stating the subject in which you would like to obtain a doctorate (in accordance with the list of subjects that can be found at the end of the doctoral regulations for our faculty).
• A declaration that neither the requirements of article 69 (1) of the Bavarian Higher Education Act (BayHschG) on the revocation of doctoral degrees nor those of article 48 of the Bayerisches Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz (Bavarian administrative procedures act – BayVwVfG) on the repealing of administrative acts (in this case the award of the doctoral degree) are currently met in your case.
• A copy of the signed supervision agreement with all enclosures (outline, schedule).
• Copies of all university degrees (with a German translation if they are not originally in German).

The requirements for admission to doctoral procedure at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences are stipulated in the general doctoral regulations ( Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO – especially section 6) and doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences ( Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz – e.g. section 5).

If German is not your native language, you need to provide proof of sufficient proficiency in German in order to be admitted to doctoral procedure. This is required in accordance with section 6 (1) point 6 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO).

For this purpose, proof of a successful language test of level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages must be submitted before or, at the latest, alongside the application for admission

You only need to provide such certificates for some doctoral subjects. More detailed information can be found in section 5 (9) of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz) and in the list of subjects at the end of the doctoral regulations for our faculty.

The doctoral affairs committee can waive these regulations upon justified request in individual cases – you will need to apply for exemption.

No. Section 9 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO) requires that a doctoral thesis must be written in German. However, section 7 of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz) allows for justified exemptions from this rule.

Once all required documents as per section 7 of the general PhD and doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO) and section 6 of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz) are available, you can submit your application for admission to doctoral procedure as well as three bound copies of your doctoral thesis to the faculty administration of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (room 2058 in building D).

Your application for admission to doctoral procedure should be addressed to the standing doctoral affairs committee of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Ständigen Promotionsausschuss der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät), Universitätsstraße 10, 86135 Augsburg. The application form is available from the faculty administration of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences and on the faculty website.

After your admission, your doctoral thesis will be reviewed by your supervisor and a second reviewer (sections 13 to 22 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO) / section 8 of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz)).
 

Once both reviews are complete, your doctoral thesis and the reviews will be put on display for a four-week period (section 19 of the APromO / section 11 of the PromOPhilSoz). Section 19 of the APromO and section 11 of the PromOPhilSoz govern who may view the thesis and the reviews during this period.

Your thesis defence (oral examination) can be held once this display period is over. Faculty members as defined in section 26 of the APromO are entitled to attend the defence as audience members but not to ask questions. The date of your defence will be announced on the faculty noticeboard.

You, the doctoral candidate, and your supervisor can suggest the second reviewer in the application for admission. Based on this suggestion, the standing doctoral affairs committee will select two authorised persons (section 2 of the general PhD and doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO)) and ask them to review your thesis: one of them will be your supervisor; the second reviewer will be another faculty member with expertise in your field (section 13 (2) of the APromO).

If there is an important reason to do so (e.g. if no suitable second reviewer can be found at the faculty or at another faculty of Augsburg University – see section 13 (3) of the APromO), the standing doctoral affairs committee can ask a university teacher of another research university (wissenschaftliche Hochschule) to act as second reviewer.

Your supervisor will suggest a suitable external second reviewer to the standing doctoral affairs committee. This suggestion will also be approved by department representatives of the faculty, and documentation of their approval will be submitted to the doctoral affairs committee. In their next meeting, the standing doctoral affairs committee will make a decision on this basis and then obtain the reviews.

The entire faculty is responsible for awarding a doctorate. Making your doctoral thesis and the reviews available to all faculty members who have a doctorate themselves gives them the opportunity to object to the reviews.

You may also view the reviews of your thesis while they are on display (section 19 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO)).

Your oral examination may not be held before the end of the display period (section 19 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO)). In accordance with the regulations of section 23 of the APromO and section 14 of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz), this examination consists of a 90-minute defence.

Section 16 of the PromOPhilSoz and section 25 of the APromO govern the appointment of the examining committee. Only professors, honorary professors, adjunct professors and Privatdozent*innen (habilitated university teachers who are not professors) may be appointed to the examining committee.

A suggested date for the oral examination must be communicated to faculty administration and to the head of the standing doctoral affairs committee at least 3 weeks in advance.

The head of the standing doctoral affairs committee will invite doctoral candidates and the three defence examiners to the agreed-upon date for the oral examination. The date of the examination will also be made public at the faculty and interested faculty members (in accordance with section 26 of the general PhD and doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO)) may attend the examination as audience members.

In accordance with the regulations of section 23 of the APromO, the oral examination will consist of a defence, at the start of which you will have 20 minutes to present the key points of your doctoral thesis (cf. section 14 of the PromOPhilSoz). You will then be asked critical questions about your doctoral thesis and will be expected to defend your work.

The defence will take a total of 90 minutes (including your presentation). After this duration, the three examiners will discuss their assessment of the oral examination and tell you the result. They will also inform you if there are any conditions relating to your doctoral thesis which need to be met before it can be published (cf. section 16 (3) & section 22 of the APromO). At this point, you will also be asked if you wish to be awarded the title of Doktorin (feminine) or Doktor (masculine) (cf. section 31 (1) of the APromO).

While reviewing your doctoral thesis, the reviewers can decide that you need to make revisions to the text before your thesis is suitable for publication. Such conditions will be documented in writing in the minutes of the oral examination.

Before you submit your doctoral thesis for publication, the reviewer(s) who imposed the conditions will check whether you have met them (section 22 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO)).

The approved version of your doctoral thesis must be published within two years of you passing your oral examination (section 30 of the general doctoral regulations (Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO)). Section 30 of the APromO and section 20 of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz) govern your opportunities for publishing your doctoral thesis and for making mandatory free copies available to the university library.

If your doctoral thesis was accepted subject to conditions (in accordance with section 16 (3) of the APromO), the responsible reviewer will need to confirm that you have met these conditions before your thesis can be published (section 30 (1) APromO).

If you want to publish your thesis with substantial changes from the original (if you have made many revisions or cut large portions), you need to request permission for this from the standing doctoral affairs committee; you need to submit a statement from your reviewers with the request.

Your supervisor is your first point of contact for questions about your doctoral procedure.

Legally binding information on doctoral procedures at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences at Augsburg University can be found in the general doctoral regulations ( Allgemeine Promotionsordnung – APromO) and doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences ( Promotionsordnung der Philosophisch-Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät – PromOPhilSoz).

If you have any further questions, please contact the faculty administration of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences via email: dekan.philsoz@phil.uni-augsburg.de