The doctorate at the Faculty of Human Sciences (HF) is usually carried out as an individual doctorate. This means that doctoral candidates work on a research topic of their choice and are scientifically advised by a supervisory committee consisting of two university professors and one postdoc.

Requirements for doctoral studies:
You must have identified a (rough) topic on which you wish to conduct research.
You have found a supervisory committee consisting of two professors from the Faculty of Human Sciences and one postdoctoral researcher who will supervise you in the preparation of your dissertation. A corresponding supervision agreement must be attached to the application for admission as a doctoral candidate.
Doctoral candidates themselves are responsible for finding a supervising committee, establishing contacts, and making the necessary arrangements.

Composition of the Supervisory Committee:

At least one of the supervising university lecturers must always be a member of the Faculty of Human Sciences; if only external supervisors are desired, a doctorate at the Faculty of Human Sciences is not possible.

From a professional perspective, however, it is sometimes useful or advisable to appoint a professor and/or a postdoctoral researcher from another faculty of the University of Cologne or another university to the supervision team, e.g. for an interdisciplinary doctoral project or if the external person has special expertise in the chosen field of research.

If a professor from outside the Faculty of Human Sciences is to become a member of the supervision team (external supervisor), that person must have the right to award a doctorate at their home institution. In this case, a written application must be submitted to the Doctoral Office beforehand. An application form for the admission of external supervisors can be found in the right-hand margin: “Application for External Supervision”.

External postdoctoral researchers may be admitted to the supervision team without a separate application.

You register in the electronic online tool for the administration of your doctorate: doctoral candidates' database “Docfile”.

The doctoral files at the University of Cologne are kept electronically via the Docfile database: https://www.portal.uni-koeln.de/docfile.htme. By registering in Docfile, you create an electronic file containing all the data and documents relevant for your admission and the doctoral procedure. The data, documents and information are processed by the doctoral office during the entire doctoral process and can be viewed by you at any time.

A registration wizard guides you through the registration process.

To register in Docfile, please provide electronic copies of the following documents in PDF format:

• Higher education entrance qualification, e.g. baccalaureate
• Higher education degrees (documents, certificates, and transcripts of records)
• completed and signed supervision agreement (download form from the right-hand margin at this website)
• Certificate of study progress or certificate of exmatriculation of your previous degree programmes
• Where applicable, if your name has changed from those mentioned in the certificate documents by marriage or similar, a certificate to that effect.

If your registration has been completed successfully, you will be given a Docfile reference number and be listed with the status “applicant”.

Once you have found a topic and a supervising committee and registered as “applicant” in Docfile, you can apply for admission as a dcotoral candidate at the Doctoral Office; please use the “Application Form” in the right margin of this website and also fill in your Docfile reference number.

The Doctoral Committee shall decide upon your admission as well as on all other matters relating to doctoral studies.

The Doctoral Committee is supported administratively and organizationally by the Doctoral Office of the Faculty of Human Sciences and is the contact point for all doctoral matters governed by the current Doctoral Regulations.

Documents required for admission according to § 5 Doctoral Regulations as of 10.09.2024:
The Doctoral Office will check according to your documents,

• Application for admission (download form in the right-hand margin)
• Supervision agreement (download form in the right-hand margin of this website)
• Bachelor's degree and certificate (officially certified copies)
• Master's degree and certificate (officially certified copies)
• copy of your university entrance qualification; and
• Certificate of Academic Progress or "Exmatrikulationsbescheinigung" (the date of your first enrollment at a university should be shown in the document),

whether you fulfil the requirements for admission as a doctoral candidate according to § 5 of the Doctoral Regulations as of 10.09.2024.

Please send all the above documents in paper form PER POST to the doctoral office AND PER E-MAIL to promotionen-hf@uni-koeln.de.

It may take a few weeks to process your application. If there are any questions regarding the information and data available so far, the Doctoral Office will contact you.

If additional steps are required for admission as a doctoral candidate, e.g. an oral aptitude test or a research suitability and aptitude assessment, you will also receive appropriate notifications from the Doctoral Office.
The contact person in the Doctoral Office is Ms. Katja Honheiser.

Contact information:

Doctoral Office of the Faculty of Human Sciences
Gronewaldstrasse 2
room 0.109
50931 Cologne
Telephone: +49-221/470-4619

If the requirements are met, the Doctoral Committee will grant you admission as a doctoral candidate. A corresponding written notification will be sent to you electronically by the Doctoral Office. If admission as a doctoral candidate is not possible, you will be informed in writing by the Doctoral Office.

Doctoral studies at the Faculty of Human Sciences require a doctoral studies lasting at least two semesters. During their doctoral studies, doctoral candidates must be enrolled as doctoral students at the University of Cologne.

With the letter of admission from the Doctoral Office you can enroll for doctoral studies at the Student Application and Registration Office of the University of Cologne (you will also receive a student ID card here).

You may be officially enrolled as a doctoral student for a total of 12 semesters. After the 12 semesters have expired, de-registration is usually carried out by the Registrar's Office of the University of Cologne. In exceptional cases, however, it is possible to extend your enrolment by another two semesters. For this purpose, you have to ask for an approval by the Doctoral Office. With the approval from the Doctoral Office, the Registrar's Office may grant an extension of your period of study.

Even after exmatriculation by the Student Application and Registration Office, the original  admission as a doctoral candidate issued by the Faculty of Human Sciences remains valid, i.e. you can complete your doctorate at the faculty even if you are already exmatriculated.

Unless your letter of admission did not make specific statements or requirements regarding your doctoral studies, there is no binding curriculum for the doctorate. Instead, as a doctoral candidate, you independently conduct your doctoral studies in your own responsibility and in consultation with your supervising committee.

However, two mandatory elements are binding for all doctoral candidates and are intended to help ensure the quality of the doctoral conditions:

Good scientific practice and scientific integrity:

By the first year of your doctorate at the latest, you must have become familiar with the Principles of Good Scientific Practice and Scientific Integrity by completing a course on the Principles of Good Scientific Practice and Scientific Integrity or by providing an equivalent evidence that you are sufficiently familiar with the subject.

The Graduate School of the Faculty of Human Sciences regularly offers such courses here; you will also be informed about dates by e-mail circular.

Regular supervisory meetings:

At least once a year, you must discuss the progress of your doctorate with your supervisory committee and exchange about the advance and challenges in the context of your dissertation as well as your future work plan.
The supervisory meetings must be documented by formalised protocols.

Both the proof of good scientific practice and the documentation of your supervisory meetings must be submitted later when you submit your dissertation.
Please also consider the “Handout Annual Supervisory Meetings” which can be downloaded from the right margin! The first pages may serve as a help for planning your supervisory meetings. On the last page you will also find a form for the documentation of your annual supervisory meeting.

Types of dissertation:

Your dissertation may be one of three different types:

• Monographic dissertation ("Monographie")
• As a monograph-based dissertation with partial publications ("Monographie mit Teilpbulikation"). You have the option of writing a monograph of which partial results, without the need for a separate application, may already be published before the complete dissertation is submitted .
• As a publication-based dissertation ("Kumulative Dissertation"). The publication-based dissertation consists of several individual research papers and a cover text which places the research in a coherent thematic and methodological context.
  As a rule, the individual papers must be published in scientifically renowned, peer-reviewed journals. In two of the individual papers, the doctoral candidate must be the first author and the papers should at least be accepted for publication.
  There are subject-specific differences with regard to the appropriate scope and effort required for publication. Please consult your supervisors for advice on the required scope and effort for your publication achievements.

The following applies to both the publication-based, cumulative dissertation and the monograph-based dissertation with partial publications: If you have collaborated with co-authors on some of your papers, the dissertation must contain a separate section describing your contribution to the results achieved in cooperation.
In the course of the dissertation process, it may turn out that a different type of dissertation than the one you initially chose proves to be more appropriate. In this case, it is possible to change the type of dissertation accordingly.

Template for the dissertation:
As the standards in the different doctoral subjects here at the faculty partly differ from each other, the The Faculty of Human Sciences does not require a certain kind of formal design of the dissertation, .
Provided that the rules of academic work are complied with, you are therefore free to choose an approrate formal design for your dissertation.
For example, you can follow the customary style of your research field or subject or follow the recommendations of the relevant scientific association when designing your manuscript.
If there are no recommendations from the relevant scientific axxociations, it is also an option, for example, to design the cover text of a cumulative dissertation according to the guidelines of the journals in which the majority of your individual studies have been published, or according to the guidelines of the journals you have received the most.

You should also consult with your supervisors on this question.

In addition to the courses on good academic practice and scientifc integrity, the faculty-wide Graduate School of the Faculty of Human Sciences offers its members additional advice, qualification events, and financial support that complement their individual supervision by the supervisory committee.

As a doctoral candidate of the Faculty of Human Sciences you are automatically a member of the Graduate School

Membership in the Graduate School does not entail any further obligations (“passive membership”).
However, financial support by the Graduate School is only provided for so-called “active members”.

Therefore, if you wish to apply for financial support by the Graduate School, e.g. for a conference trip or for the organisation of a workshop, a small conference or a doctoral candidates' field trip, you have prove that you have actively participated in the supervision and qualification concept of the Graduate School (at least once a year).
Examples of activities that qualify you to apply for a (partial) funding are given in the respective calls for proposals.

Information on the Graduate School, membership, and offers can be found here (link to the Graduate School).

By submitting your dissertation, you apply for admission to the doctoral examination. This date of submission also determines when you can take the oral examination.

Doctoral Dates
Doctoral examinations are synchronised by certain phases per semester, and according to fixed deadlines. This means that the earliest possible date for an oral examination depends on the deadline you meet with your application for the doctoral examination.

An overview of the current examnination phases can be found here.

Application for a doctorate
The complete application for the doctoral examination is regulated in § 12 of the Doctoral Regulations. It includes the “Admission to the doctoral examination procedure” (see the form in the right margin of this website), your dissertation and other documents. The complete application must be submitted to the Doctoral Office. A checklist of the required documents according to the Doctoral Regulations as of 10.09.2024 can be found on the last page of the application form.

The complete application for admission to a doctorate must be submitted as follows:

• as a paper copy postal mail to the Doctoral Office (with the original signatures together with a bound copy of the dissertation) and
• as digital version by e-mail to promotionen-hf[at]uni-koeln.de (electronic copies of the application documents, each in PDF format)

The key to reaching a certain deadline is when the Doctoral Office receives the complete electronic application. Please make sure that the paper version of your application arrives at the Doctoral Office as soon as possible.
It is possible to make the following suggestions and include them in the application:

(a) Reviewers for the dissertation
(b) Composition of the Examination Board
(c) date of the oral examination (agreed with the participants and according to the examination phases)

When the examination procedure is opened, you will receive a notification from the Doctoral Office. Furthermore, no information on the state of the procedure will be given. You will receive a written notification in due course.

Evaluation
We will request the experts' opinions for your dissertation. 

After the experts' opinions have been submitted, the members of the faculty who are entitled to award a doctorate are given the opportunity to inspect the dissertation and the reviews for two weeks. At the end of the display and objection period, you will receive a written (electronic) notification stating whether your dissertation has been accepted or rejected, as well as the grade of the written performance. This letter will also confirm the final date of your disputation.

After you have been informed that your dissertation has been accepted, the disputation is pending. The oral examination is usually open to the faculty public. However, you have the opportunity to object to the public in writing (stating your objection in your application for the doctoral examination procedure (see Step 8).

After your examination procedure has been opened, please make an appointment for the disputation with your Examination Board (taking into account the dates of your doctorate). Subsequently, please forward the date, time and form of the examination (in presence or online) to the Doctoral Office.

Disputations can be held both in presence and as an online exam:
(a) Presence: If, in consultation with the examination committee, the examination is to take place in presence, the the doctoral candidates theirselves have to organise a room for the examination.
(b) Online: The online exam ("Zoom meeting") is created by the Chair of the examination board who, in advance of the disputation, will also forward the access data to all participants of the disputation.

Procedure Disputation:
The disputation usually lasts 90 minutes, of which a maximum of 30 minutes should be spent on your oral presentation; the rest of the time is reserved for discussing your dissertation with the examination board. You should present and defend the results of your dissertation, and thus be able to discuss your research results in a wider context. Discuss with your supervisor how to focus the content of your presentation most suitably.

Immediately after the presentation and discussion, you will have to leave the examination room, and the Examination Board decides whether the disputation has been passed. The grade is determined and the decision will be communicated to you, immediately.

After the disputation:
After the disputation, your examination certificate ("Zeugnis") will be issued. You will receive it by e-mail as well as a form for the Declaration of print release ("Druckfreigabeerklärung") for your reviewers, and information on the publication of your dissertation.

After successfully passing the disputation, the examination procedure is finished, but your doctorate is not finally completed until you have published your dissertation. Only then you will receive the doctoral diploma and be entitled to hold the doctoral degree.

Although you have successfully passed the oral examination, your doctorate is not complete until your dissertation has been completely published. Only then you will eceive the doctorate diploma and have the right to use the doctorate.

Before you start publishing your dissertation, please clarify with your supervisors or the reviewers of your dissertation whether any changes have to be made or whether any additional requirements have to be met before the final publication.

There are different ways of publishing. An overview of this can be found in the document “Handout for Publishing your Dissertation” which you have received together with the examination certificate, shortly after your disputation.

After you have submitted the “Declaration of print release" (”Druckreifeerklärung") and proof copies of your published dissertation you will receive your doctoral diploma (“Promotionsurkunde”) which allows you to officially hold the doctoral degree .

Declaration of print release" (”Druckreifeerklärung"):

The Declaration of print release" (”Druckreifeerklärung") has to be signed by the reviewers of your dissertation, then you must submit it to the Doctoral Office of the Faculty of Human Sciences (an E-Mail would be sufficient).
If applicable, also the publishing contract and a confirmation of the number of printed copies (if your dissertation will be published by a commercial publisher) have to be submitted.
For further information, please  follow the instructions for the publication of the dissertation.

Printed copies of the dissertation:

The printed deposit copies of the dissertation are to be submitted to the

Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln  
Abteilung Hochschulschriften, Tausch, Geschenk
Universitätsstraße 33
Room 4.002 (4th floor)
50931 Cologne:
GERMANY

Telephone: (0221) 4703318 or 470-2573

Afterwards, a confirmation of receipt will be sent to the Doctoral Office automatically:

As soon as the publication procedure ist complete, the Doctoral Office will contact you to arrange how the doctoral diploma can be handed over to you.

Every autumn, the Faculty of Human Sciences hosts a graduation ceremony to celebrate the achievements of all doctoral candidates who passed their viva and to bid farewell to them.

Invitations go out to all PhD students who have managed to pass their viva in the past year, regardless of whether or not their dissertation has been published yet. Friends and family, too, will be asked to share in the festivities.

We cannot wait to welcome you to the graduation ceremony!

The below photograph should give you an idea as to what you can expect: