Germany – Academia

PhD

Structure of doctoral programme

The traditional individual path to a PhD remains the most common in Germany, even though more and more excellent graduate schools are established. When undertaking a traditional/individual PhD, you have typically only one professor supervising you. You as the doctoral student work on your supervisor’s specialist subject in consultation with the professor, but you do so largely independently. This form of PhD study offers a great deal of flexibility (i.e. it is up to you when, where, and how much you work), but demands a high degree of personal initiative and responsibility, maybe more so than you might be used to from completing your M.A. in the UK (especially if it was a taught M.A. you were doing). How long a traditional individual doctorate takes depends on your own time schedule – or on the duration of your work contract (if you have one). The Regelstudienzeit is often stated as being three years. Taking three to five years to complete a PhD is normal in Germany. In graduate schools (structured programs leading to you obtaining a PhD), the level of supervision might be higher, and there is generally more structure (e.g. in forms of lectures or events you are expected to attend) and more interaction/networking opportunities with other academics and PhD students from your subject area, as you are likely to be one of a larger group of PhD students affiliated with a department or a whole faculty. Therefore, in graduate schools, there might be slightly more ‘pressure’ to ideally finish the PhD within the Regelstudienzeit of three years.

PhD support

PhD support will vary from university to university, subject to subject, and even depending on who is your supervisor. Make sure you understand the various forms of support there are at the institution of your choice, what is expected of you, and how to best manage your studies.

Supervisors will meet with you on a regular basis to discuss your work, progress, and plans for next steps. Note that it is expected that you ask for and arrange the meetings, just like it is you who will approach the supervisor to have them read drafted work whenever you feel it is necessary – if you do not do so, the assumption will be that you need more time to work by yourself, and people will leave you to it. Overall, the supervision of doctoral candidates is as intensive as you want it to be. Your Doktorvater or Doktormutter has your interests at heart – after all, your later success will fall back on them, too.

Additional ways of getting the input you need to advance your work is by presenting at a Kolloquium that your supervisor or one of his/her colleagues in the department might run. There, you and other PhD students of the Dept. might come together on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and discuss each other’s work by e.g. practicing conference papers etc.

PhD training

What other training you undertake is often up to you. Some people decide to concentrate fully on working on their theses, others from the beginning actively seek out opportunities such as workshops and seminars offered at their university to take part in. These could be offered by the careers service that every university has, in form of mentoring programs some universities offer, or something your supervisor recommends to you. With view to equality, the University of Frankfurt, for instance, offers apposite mentoring for doctoral students in the arts and humanities, for international students or for women especially. If you are part of a graduate school, there may be certain research training modules you are expected to take part in already built into your academic year. The Humboldt University in Berlin specifically offers mentoring for PhD students in the 2^nd or 3^rd year of study, to help master their next career step.

Generally, try and set yourself goals with your own research training in mind: If there are public speaking workshops offered for your faculty, go along. Or there are other gaps you identify in your experience/ skill set, e.g. you have never organised a conference or you would like to become an editor for a postgraduate journal. In such cases, make sure to get involved with the people you know at your university who have set up such a journal or are involved in organising a big conference. They will most likely be grateful for the help you offer – and in turn, you get valuable experience out of this, plus a boost for your CV.

Overall, there is often no formalised training needs analysis – it is down to the individual student to identify their needs and seek to work on them (e.g. by booking yourself onto seminars etc.). A traditional doctorate therefore does not typically involve compulsory attendance at lectures or seminars. The focus is on your individual research for the doctoral thesis. If you are not yet tied into a doctoral network (e.g. as part of a graduate school, or through your funding body), do therefore make an effort to establish contacts with other researchers or doctoral students. Most if not all universities nowadays do offer platforms of some kind where doctoral students can meet and exchange views, for example, or in weekly or monthly doctoral student colloquia (see glossary: Kolloquium) where different doctoral research projects by other PhD students affiliated with your department are presented and discussed under the guidance of a professor at that institution.

If you are doing your PhD in a more structured environment, e.g. as part of a graduate school, it is more likely that there are compulsory lectures or seminars for you to attend, and possibly interim assessment of some form. To take the graduate school ‘Exzellenzcluster: Religion und Politik’ at the University of Münster as an example, there it is part of the programme that PhD students have bi-weekly mentoring meetings plus one meeting per semester with both their supervisor and another mentor. They have to attend one seminar per week in the first two semesters, are expected to organise and attend workshops, and have their progress monitored at the end of the first and second year on the basis of a report they write. In general, therefore, structured PhD programmes as offered by graduate schools/Graduiertenschulen/Graduiertenkollegs (different terms for the same thing, used interchangeably and equally often) are the ones that offer the kind of support with mentoring, targets and deadlines students from the UK would maybe expect to find. This does not mean, however, that a traditional individual doctorate is ‘worse’ in any way; it is simply less formalised.

Monitoring

Monitoring may vary, and in some places, your work may not be monitored in any formalised or standardised way. However, to take the graduate school ‘Practices of Literature’ (University of Münster) as an example, there, the basis of your PhD is a ‘Betreuungsvereinbarung’ (agreement of supervision) you will have agreed upon and signed together with your supervisor(s) at the very beginning of your first year. This document, functioning as a contract between you and your supervisor(s), lays out your and their expected commitment, so you have got something to rely on. An example for such a document can be found on the University of Muenster website.

This particular Betreuungsvereinbarung, for example, specifies that the PhD student hands in a 50-page work sample after the end of the first year, but it also specifies that supervisors are expected to have read and discussed your work within 2 weeks whenever you have handed something in. It is a good way of managing expectations and gives both sides something to rely on. Many other universities will have similar templates you can use.

PhD thesis

The expected length of a thesis might vary considerably from subject to subject. Theses authored in the arts and humanities are normally longer than in the sciences. Around 250 pages in the arts and humanities can be considered standard. However, there often is no upper limit, which can lead to theses commonly being twice or three times as long. You will normally learn early on what is expected – the length of your thesis might be determined in the agreement you sign with your supervisor(s) at the start of your PhD studies.

Formal requirements will have been outlined to you by your university or faculty at the beginning of your studies. This normally includes choice of citation style, minimum or maximum length, and sometimes includes margins and font size, as often, the length of the thesis is stated in pages rather than words.

In order to submit your thesis, check your university’s deadlines for submission. At the University of Cologne for instance, there are 7-8 possible deadlines per year, specified on their website under the headings Termine&Info, Promotionstermine. To be handed in together with your thesis (4 copies), in Cologne, other documents like your CV and photocopies of degree certificates are required.

Viva

Besides the thesis, there will be an oral exam/viva (sometimes called Rigorosum, Disputation or Verteidigung, literally meaning ‘defence’). In Cologne, for example, this is meant to take place two month after the submission of your thesis. You will be given a mark for your PhD on the basis of both the thesis and your performance in the viva. The possible grades in Germany are, expressed in Latin (from best to ‘worst’, i.e. sufficient): “summa cum laude”, “magna cum laude”, “cum laude”, “satis bene” and “rite”.

However, before you can officially bear the title Dr. phil., you must be able to prove you have published your thesis. Up until then, you are Doktor designatus, or Dr. des. You publish after you have implemented the corrections you were asked to do in/after your viva. If you publish with a specialist publishing house, this can be fairly expensive (around a few hundred, but up to a few thousand Euros). The universities therefore offer the possibility to publish online with them, which should be for free, or to simply print the required number of copies yourself and deposit them in your university library for others to access. Of course, there are disadvantages to this, too: While you save money, on the other hand, you will gain a wider readership when publishing professionally.

Organisation of the viva may be your responsibility. This means you have to plan ahead, and book a room through the university on a day that suits you and your examiners. As they might have busy schedules, start planning early.

Supervisors might offer you to have a mock viva with them. Do signal that you would be interested in having one. If you know others in your subject who have recently had their viva, or have friends who are willing to practise it with you, seize the opportunity to have mock vivas with them. The more confident you are on the day of your actual viva, the more you can focus on the content-side of your viva – speaking as an expert in your field, on a par with your examiners.

There is no standard length of the viva. The procedure typically is as follows: The candidate begins by giving a short presentation on his/her topic. A discussion with the examiners ensues – they might ask further question on the basis of their reading of your thesis, or on a point you raised in the presentation. You will find information on your viva in the Promotionsordnung of your faculty. Some outline the exact structure of the viva, and also length of e.g. the presentation you are expected to give. Traditionally, the viva is open to members of the academic staff of your university, so you might have a small audience.

At the Freie Universität Berlin, for instance, the presentation you are expected to give should be 30 minutes in length, with 30-60 minutes of discussions and question time afterwards. You can, but do not have to, accept questions from other academics which might have come to watch your viva. Compare here Promotionsordnung for the arts and humanities subjects at the FU Berlin, in German.

Your university might have different regulations, but they will be set out in a very similar document. A point of interest about the regulations outlined by the FU Berlin is that you may be able to have your viva in German, English or another language, according to what you have arranged with your examiners beforehand. You should check early on if this is of interest to you.

The number of examiners depends on your home institution. Expect a small examiners’ board with several professors (often at least three people), including the head of your faculty’s examination board and your supervisors, but also possibly at least one external academic, and one academic who will be there just for minute taking.

Employment

Just like in the UK, students completing a traditional doctorate with a supervisor will often have to raise the necessary funds themselves (e.g. by securing a scholarship – see 4.2. and 4.3.). Alternatively, a teaching appointment as wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the university may provide your income. Typically, you would be employed on a part-time contract at the institute of your supervisor, where you are then deployed in teaching a seminar or two and/or in (usually third-party funded) research projects. While these are described as 50% or 65% positions, the work load varies. You would earn between c. 1,100 and 1,600 Euros a month. Some get paid this kind of money but do not really need to work on anything else but their own research (i.e. effectively like having a Stipendium), others find themselves working in the evenings and at weekends to accommodate both their own research and obligations they have to fulfil as research assistants. Tasks for research assistants besides contributing to research or teaching can include supervising undergraduate students, all kinds of organisational and admin tasks, as well as invigilating and marking exams for the professor their job is associated with.

In Germany, it is very common to work alongside studying. For some students, this may only be a couple of hours per week, e.g. in a café in the evening, others work up to two full days a week, or full-time for several weeks in the summer. If you are from the UK, you are free to work in Germany (EU law). However, doctoral candidates from third countries that do not enjoy free movement of labour within the EU must apply for the appropriate visa from the German embassy or consulate responsible for their place of residence before entering the country. Students who want to earn a little extra money with a side job during their doctorate although they are holding a scholarship or receiving BaföG should do so only to a limited extent – you can find out how much you are allowed to earn on top of your scholarship by getting in touch with your funding body as they will have regulations about this – you don’t want to risk having to pay back a part or all of your scholarship money.

If you do decide to work alongside your PhD studies, think wisely about how many hours a week you think you can spare. You don’t want your studies to suffer. Once you have a job lined up, there are a few legal things to consider to your advantage: You will probably want to stay below the threshold of (currently) 8,004 Euro for tax-free earnings per year, or 400 Euros a month, to make working on the side worthwhile financially. For more in-depth information see this article from Pflichtlektuere, a university paper in German. Similar articles are published regularly in university magazines and national newspapers; speaking to fellow students is a good idea, too, as they will know about these thresholds.

Financing training courses, travel to conferences, etc. should not be a worry if you hold a scholarship. You can apply for extra money with your funding body for these purposes. If you are doing your PhD in affiliation with a graduate school with a structured programme, you will often find that in the application to the graduate school, an application for funding is incorporated. If you are accepted onto the programme, funding is then automatically already secured.

If you are self-funded, talk to people working in your field about how they covered the cost for trips to conferences, summer schools, etc. when they were PhD students. They might know small specialist organisations that you can apply to for small travel grants and the like.

Be open for opportunities that might come your way – depending on your career goals (working in- or outside academia), a job you do as a student – mainly for the money – will provide you with valuable work experience for afterwards. It can ease the way into a full-time job with a certain company or organisation, or (e.g. when asked if you want to work on a research project at your university while still doing your PhD) will teach you key skills that improve your CV and with that your chances of securing a post-doc position.

Visiting other institutions, exchange programmes and placements

Some universities have established relationships with universities abroad, and advertise some places only to their PhD students (not B.A. or M.A. students). The Freie Universität Berlin, for instance, has a place each at Cornell University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and Washington University. These exclusive places are meant for their most promising PhD candidates, and a semester or two at one of these institutions will certainly make you stand out among other PhD candidates who stay at their home institution in Germany for the whole of their studies.

The University of Erlangen has some advice on their website, pointing out what to consider when thinking about spending a period of time abroad (in German). Early planning is advisable. A stay at another institution (regardless if this is somewhere else in Germany or abroad) makes sense when this is necessary or beneficial for the work on your thesis and/or your personal profile, e.g. when required for data collection, interviews you want to conduct with authors or witnesses of historical events, or if there is a research centre matching your interests with an outstanding reputation.

If you are unsure about if you should integrate some time at a different institution into your work on your PhD, consult with your supervisor. He/she will normally be happy to help or suggest institutions. Thereby you can also take advantage of your supervisor’s international academic network.

For further reading there is another blog, on the academics.de website, about the pros and cons of spending a period of time (or the whole of your PhD) outside of Germany (in German).

If you are looking for a placement the first step would be to talk to your supervisor. If you are planning to go abroad, do also make contact with your institution’s international office who will normally be very helpful and enthusiastic. They will also know about funding for shorter stays abroad such as the Erasmus Praktikum stipend (‘Praktikum’ meaning placement/internship), see for example the website of the Universität Wien for information on this.

If you are planning to carry out archival research elsewhere in Germany, or want to visit another German university for a shorter period of time because someone at a different institution works in the field you are interested in or runs a research group or centre there, it might again be advisable to discuss this with your supervisor, think about how this will fit in with your timetable for completion (if you have one), and maybe establish first contacts with the institution you would like to visit through your supervisor. This will make it look more official and minimises your chances of getting turned down.