Doctoral Candidates

The doctorate serves as proof of the ability to carry out in-depth scientific work and is based on an independent scientific paper - the dissertation - and an oral examination. The doctorate is thus the highest academic degree that universities can award.  

A doctorate is a prerequisite for a career in science and research. In Germany, a doctorate can also open up numerous other career paths, since management positions in the public sector or in business are often filled with doctoral candidates. In some subjects, such as chemistry, a doctorate is also expected for non-university career entry, so that about 90 percent of chemists complete their university studies with a doctorate. In fact, the majority of the doctoral candidates enter the non-university labor market and only a small proportion remain in research.

You should aim to get through the acceptance process as early as possible. It gives you as a doctoral candidate certainty in a number of ways:

• Ensuring you meet the requirements: When you apply to be accepted, the University checks to see that you meet the requirements to start the doctoral process - as set out in the doctoral degree regulations.
• Guaranteeing you have a supervisor: Acceptance as a doctoral candidate ensures your status. That in turn means that both the Faculty and the supervisors have made a binding declaration to supervise your entire doctoral process.
• Determining which doctoral degree regulations apply to you: Doctoral degree regulations are amended from time to time. This means that once you are a doctoral candidate, it is not enough to check the doctoral degree regulations just once to see if you meet the requirements in a given subject. If you are not accepted as a doctoral candidate, the regulations can be changed without you finding out about it - because you are not in the system and therefore automatically contactable for the Faculty or the University. You can only be sure of being informed about changes or transitional arrangements with regard to the doctoral degree regulations if you are accepted as a doctoral candidate.
• Voting rights in the doctoral conventions: State law provides for doctoral conventions to represent the interests of all candidates in the doctoral process. In Tübingen, the conventions are set up by the Faculties to ensure that the interests of doctoral candidates are represented independently of how they are connected with the University (as research assistants, enrolled doctoral candidates, or doctoral researchers financed by grants). To take part in your faculty’s doctoral convention and to have a vote at it, you must be accepted as a doctoral candidate.

Acceptance to the doctoral process is also required for enrollment as a doctoral candidate and for participation in the Graduate Academy’s qualification program.

As soon as you have been accepted as a doctoral candidate, you must go to Student Administration to be enrolled as a student. You will need to present your certificate of acceptance as a doctoral candidate. Being enrolled gives you the status of a student - that means you can get student discounts with your student ID card, and you can get the semester ticket - a discounted public transport pass. You have to pay a fee when you enroll. Further information and enrollment forms on the Student Administration website.

If you are already enrolled as a student at the University of Tübingen, you do not need to re-enroll; but you can change your enrollment status. Then you keep your old student identity card. Further information on change of enrollment status and the change of enrollment status application form may be found here. 

Most doctorates are individual doctorates, particularly in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In this case, candidates consult with their supervisors to choose a research topic, which they work on independently. Supervision is carried out in a way agreed between the supervisors and the candidate. Most supervisors offer regular doctoral colloquiums; but beyond that there are not usually any additional requirements. An individual doctorate therefore creates the biggest challenge - of organizing and managing one’s own major research project.

The University of Tübingen has a number of approaches to support individuals in managing their doctoral efforts. These include supervision agreements which are usually signed when the doctoral candidate and his or her (usually) two supervisors agree on the supervision. The agreements set out each party’s rights and duties, as well as a running timetable for regular supervision meetings and status reports.

One relatively new alternative to an individual doctorate is a structured doctoral program. Such programs can have any one of several different names, and can take a variety of forms. Structured doctoral programs at the University of Tübingen can be part of a DFG research training group, a PhD network, the LEAD Graduate School, or one of the three Graduate Schools integrated into the Center for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN). Two of these are International Max Planck Research Schools and are part of the University’s collaboration with the Tübingen Max Planck Campus.

Despite their many names, all the doctoral programs have these things in common:

1. a common thematic or structural research context, often in a particular field, as in a research training group,
2. their doctoral researchers take part in a coordinated program with classes and workshops - often with a set curriculum,
3. you usually have to apply to join them and undergo a selection process to see among other things, if your interests fit with the research topic. An overview of research programs can be found at qualification program for doctoral candidates  here in the ILIAS portal. Information on calls for applications and deadlines may be found there also.

Medizinische Fakultät: https://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/de/medizinische-fakultaet/promotionen 

Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät: https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/30559 

Philosophische Fakultät: https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/23258 ; https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/23256  

Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät: https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/44606

Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience: https://www.neuroschool-tuebingen.de/

There are many different ways to find a topic for your dissertation project. You may choose a topic which piques your personal interest, you can expand your Master’s thesis, or you could let yourself be guided/inspired by the research programs of scientific institutions (i.e. research training groups, post-graduate or international doctorate programs). Especially in the natural sciences, topics are often distributed by the research staff rather than proposed by the prospective doctoral candidates themselves.

Your personal interest should guide you in the planning of the research project. Therefore, try to find a question which sparks your interest and which has not yet been sufficiently investigated in research. Identify the "research gap" that you would like to close with your project. The following criteria and questions may be relevant when working on the dissertation topic:

• Are there already other works on this question?  
• Is the project chosen in such a way that it can be realized in three years? 
• How does my research project contribute to the scientific community? 
• Does my topic deal with current research questions? 
• Is my topic relevant for research in the long term? 
• Does it help me to achieve my professional and personal goals? 

Follow your interests, read current research literature and attend advanced seminars. This can be helpful in estimating the scientific potential of a topic. Always be aware that topic identification is a process that takes some time. It is both normal and necessary to broaden the scope of a topic at the beginning and then to narrow it down as you progress.

Writing  PhD thesis is usually scheduled for 3 year and is therefore not comparable to writing term papers or even a master's thesis. Applying the previously know strategies for time- and self-management to the new situation can be difficult for many doctoral students. This can be especially challenging for those who are doing an individual doctorate, since there is also the temptation to extend the project in order to explore the chosen topic in detail. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that the duration of the doctorate is also a career factor, both for a career in academia and outside it.

Therefore, a schedule should be drafted for the entire duration of the PhD, right at the beginning of the work on the project. Even if there is no binding deadline, a date should be set. This can be linked to the expiry of the position or the grant, for example. Such a project plan covers larger time steps, often calculated in months or quarters. The plan should include specific milestones, such as the start or completion of a field phase or the completion of a particular chapter.

Creating step to step schedules that derive from the larger time frame is necessary for an effective utilization of the time available. It is not necessary to have a fixed schedule right away. When creating weekly and daily schedules, it is helpful to structure the available time backwards from fixed dates or milestones and to schedule work steps.This means that concrete tasks or work steps are formulated that are to be completed at a specific time, e.g. within a week or on a specific day. To achieve the set goals, it makes sense to record tasks in as much detail as possible. Instead of "Review secondary literature", a task can be described as "Skim texts A-D" or "Create excerpt for chapter 4 in book D", for example.

Particularly the research phase can present a great challenge for doctoral candidates, when they have to reconcile various professional and private commitments and at the same time have to plan sufficient time to work on the dissertation. Therefore, it is important to identify periods that can be used for working on the dissertation. To do this, it is helpful to first create an overview of all tasks that occur within a week. The times when work on the dissertation is to be done should be scheduled as fixed dates in the daily and weekly routine.

Planning breaks and periods of recovery, like weekends and vacation, is just as important as scheduling the work. The most crucial aspect about self care is self-management. Breaks can always help to stay productive during the day and maintain motivation over the entire duration of a doctoral thesis.

All members of the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen are fully committed to the rules of good scientific practice. The University of Tübingen has adopted the "Rules of Procedure of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen for Dealing with Misconduct in Science" and the "Guidelines for Ensuring Good Scientific Practice".

Central topics that are particularly relevant for doctoral students and scientists in the qualification phase include plagiarism prevention, regulations on publication and authorship, and data management. Detailed information on these topics can also be found in the DFG Code. The regulations of the university are based on the regulations of the DFG Codex.

DFG Codex 

Scientific misconduct can have many reasons:

• high pressure to publish as quickly and as much as possible in order to survive in the competition for funding,
• rationalization of misconduct based on the conviction that one's own hypothesis must be correct in any case,
• or the desire to obtain a title as quickly as possible in order to make professional progress are just a few of them.

These motivations do not always lead to a serious violation of the rules of good scientific practice. However, they often lead to questionable procedures that are in the grey area of misconduct. For doctoral students and scientists in the qualification phase it is therefore important to deal with the topic and the applicable regulations at an early stage in order to refresh their own knowledge, to recognize questionable practice or even misconduct and to familiarize themselves with the procedure in case of suspected misconduct. The Graduate Academy offers regular workshops on the topic of good scientific practice.

Ombudspersons act as contact points in case of conflicts or problems. At the University of Tübingen there are different types of ombudspersons for specific topics:

• Ombudspersons for good scientific practice: The DFG calls upon all research institutions in Germany to appoint ombudspersons for good scientific practice. At the University of Tübingen, these ombudspersons (formerly confidants) come from three areas: the humanities, the natural sciences and medicine. In each area, 2 ombudspersons are appointed by the Senate, and there are 2 deputies for each area. The ombudspersons can be contacted by all scientists at the university in case of questions regarding good scientific practice or suspected cases of scientific misconduct. Inquiries will be treated confidentially. The ombudspersons for good scientific practice are not located at the faculty level, i.e. scientists can contact any ombudsperson. In many cases it may be useful to contact an ombudsperson who is close to your own subject. If there is a suspicion of scientific misconduct, the ombudspersons will investigate it. If the suspicion is confirmed, the ombudsperson will pass the case on to the Commission for the Investigation of Misconduct, which will initiate official proceedings.

• Ombudspersons for doctoral matters: Since 2014, the State University Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg has provided for the appointment of special ombudspersons as contact persons for doctoral students (§38 (4) LHG). These ombudspersons are located at the University of Tübingen at the faculty level. They are the point of contact for doctoral students in the event of conflicts that arise during the course of the doctorate, e.g. between the doctoral candidate and the supervisor. The doctoral regulations of the faculties determine who is to be the ombudsperson. As a rule, the office is held by the deans or vice-deans.