Doctoral Study

Supervisors

Find and contact a university lecturer independently (all professors, private lecturers and, under certain conditions, heads of junior research groups at the university, for more details see § 6 of the doctoral regulations (PDF, 275 KB)). In consultation with this person, you will look for another person to take over the co-supervision.

Admission

You must be formally accepted as a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Geosciences at the beginning of your doctoral thesis.

Please submit the following documents to the Doctoral Office:

• Application for admission to doctoral studies (PDF, 289 KB), completed and signed by you, together with a completed confirmation of supervision (page 2 of the application) and signed by both supervisors
• Certificates (for Master's and Bachelor's degrees or equivalent degrees)
• Current curriculum vitae
• As soon as you have all documents complete, please send them first in digital form to: promotion@geo.lmu.de

If all documents are complete, you will receive an appointment to submit the originals to the Doctoral Office in the next step. Your application will then be submitted to the doctoral board.

In the course of admission, please also register electronically using the online registration form.

Depending on where you are from and depending on where you obtained your Master degree, the International Office or the Office of the University Registrar is responsible for enrollment as a doctoral student. Please follow their instructions on the information page.

Please note:

• Doctoral studies are not subject to a standard period of study. As a rule, enrollment for the purpose of a doctorate is limited to a maximum of 8 semesters.
• Is is not obligatory to enroll during your doctoral studies.

The intermediate doctoral examination is conducted by the doctoral committee (both supervisors and one additional committee member). In contrast to the defense at the end of your studies, it is not a public event. It has to take place no later than one year after acceptance as a doctoral candidate.

• It is an oral examination with a 30-minute lecture and presentation of the doctoral project, followed by a 60-minute discussion.
• The examination is conducted exclusively by the doctoral committee and is therefore not a public event (unlike the disputation at the end of your doctoral thesis).
• One additional competent person has to be present who takes the notes during the exam (can be anyone who understands enough of your topic to keep the minutes and has a doctoral degree).

You can look up the information on the intermediate doctoral examination in article 8 of the Doctoral Degree Regulations dated February 19, 2024 (PDF, 275 KB).

You do not know by which date you should take your intermediate doctoral examination? Look on your Application for Admission to Doctoral Sciences or your Letter of Acceptance - if not stated otherwise, the date of acceptance is the date of the signature of the doctoral committee chair - the latest date of the intermediate examination is one year later.

Information on submission in accordance with the doctoral degree regulations of August 18, 2006

• To submit your dissertation, you must complete the application for admission to the doctoral degree procedure and submit it to the Doctoral Office with all the documents specified therein.
• There are currently no deadlines for submission. However please arrange a personal appointment in good time for submission to the Doctoral Office at promotion@geo.lmu.de
• If you do not have certified copies of your certificates, you can submit the originals as simple copies. In this case, please bring the simple copies with you.

Procedure after submission:

• Reviews: Your submitted dissertation will first be reviewed by your supervisor and a secon reviewer. The reviews should be available within two months.
• Circulation: The other members of the doctoral committee must then comment. During the lecture period, the comments should be submitted after one week at the latest, during the lecture-free period after six weeks at the latest.
• Display: Once the comments have been received, the dissertation is displayed in the Dean's Office. The display period is two weeks during the lecture period and six weeks during the lecture-free period.
• Invitation period ("Ladungsfrist"): After the display, a period of additional eight days must be observed before the defense can take place (unless the doctoral candidate has waived the invitation period, sheet 4 in the application for admission to the doctoral procedure).

When do I have to submit my thesis in order to meet a certain disputation date?

Unfortunately, there is no general answer to this question, as the time frame from submission to disputation can vary greatly. Among other things, it depends on

• how quickly the reviews arrive,
• whether or not the circulation period falls during the lecture-free period,
• whether or not the display falls during the lecture-free period.

The date of the disputation can therefore only be finalized as soon as the display has started and it is therefore foreseeable when the assessment will be completed.

The disputation or “defense” consists of a 30-minute presentation by the candidate and a subsequent academic discussion (see § 14 Doctoral Degree Regulations of August 18, 2006/ § 14 Doctoral Degree Regulations of February 19, 2024).

The disputation is held before the six-member (Prom. Ord. of August 18, 2006) or three-member (Prom. Ord. of February 19, 20024) doctoral committee and the presentation is open to the public.

How do I manage to present my work within 30 minutes?

30 minutes is not much time to present years of work on a topic - the trick is to leave out everything unnecessary. It is important, especially at the beginning, to make it clear to people who are not familiar with your field in detail why you have worked on this topic and why it is important. Then you can and should show your detailed knowledge, your results and interpretations in depth. In the end, it is important to convey an overall picture. Save any details that you do not have time to cover for the discussion. Here you can go into much more depth when answering the committee's questions.

After submitting your dissertation and passing the oral examination, you are almost there - the doctoral title is within reach.

Please note, that the preliminary notification you receive after the oral examination does not yet entitle you to use the doctoral title; designations such as Doctor designatus (Dr. des.) or similar are also not permitted. Only after receiving the certificate you may officially use the title Dr. rer. nat. or Dr. phil.

In order to receive the doctoral certificate for the award of the title you must

• first submit six printed and possibly corrected copies of your dissertation to the University's Office of Publications and publish your dissertation electronically (further information can be found here).
• According to the doctoral regulations, this submission must take place within one year.
• The certificate will be issued automatically after the dissertation has been uploaded electronically and submitted to the University Library.
• As soon as the doctoral certificate is ready for collection at the Doctoral Office, you will receive a message by e-mail and you can make an appointment to collect it.