Information sheet on the Application for Acceptance as PhD Student (Dr. phil.)
To apply for acceptance as a PhD student, please submit the following documents to the Administrative Office Faculty 10:
3. Certificate and diploma of the university degree
as officially certified copy or as original and single copy.
The requirement for admission to a PhD program is the successful completion of a university degree that is meaningfully related to the planned dissertation topic, evidenced by a master's degree or a diploma earned at a university, a master's degree or a state examination.
The degree must be better than 2.5 (good). In the case of foreign degrees, this must also be proven.
Students who have completed their studies with a bachelor's degree or a diploma from a university of applied sciences can be admitted to PhD studies if
- a degree with an overall grade better than 1.5 (very good) is achieved,
- the degree completed is meaningfully related to the planned dissertation topic,
- knowledge, skills and abilities have been demonstrated through additional academic achievements, which show that the applicant is able to work scientifically in depth. The extent of these academic achievements is determined in connection with the acceptance as a PhD student at the request of the supervisor by the PhD board in agreement with the responsible department. The extent of these study achievements may not exceed 90 CP.
For foreign certificates, an evaluation by the International Office is required. Your first contact is the department in which you want to do your PhD.
First of all, please send your documents to the department, which will forward them to the International Office with a confirmation that the costs have been covered (109 euros).
The deadline for issuing the evaluation is usually 4 weeks after all required documents have been received by the International Office. The deadline may be extended under certain circumstances.
The following documents are required to process the evaluation:
- copies of all degree certificates (diplomas) in the original language (e.g. bachelor's, master's and possibly PhD certificates),
- copies of a German translation of all degree certificates, prepared by a sworn translator (not required for English-language certificates), and
- copies of the overviews of subjects and grades in the original language
After the submitted documents have been checked, the faculty will be informed directly about the result. The examination result is to be used only within the university.
5. Exposé
(font size11; 1 ½-line; approx. 15-20 pages)
The statement of the problem of the proposed work should include:
- subject matter and theoretical framework of its treatment
- main hypotheses
- state of research
- relevance of the topic
- methodological approach
- preliminary work
- outline
- preliminary bibliography
- preliminary schedule
- possibly institutional cooperation
The exposé that you submit must be agreed upon with the intended supervisor. If there are any changes, the revised exposé must be resubmitted to the supervisor before the application is submitted.
In the case of a collective dissertation, authorship must be stated.
The following information is required:
- the co-authors and type of cooperation
- shares of the applicant in the topic
6. Written declaration of consent and statement of the supervisor
(if applicable of the second supervisor) regarding the exposé and the supervision.
The signature of the supervisor on the application form is not sufficient as a statement. The PhD board asks for a statement related to the exposé. The signed statement must be available at the time of application. It cannot be submitted later.
7. Completed PhD student survey form
Please fill out the survey form for PhD registration (www.uni-bremen.de/promostatis). You will automatically receive a copy of your information by mail. Please include this copy with your application materials.
Notes on the collective dissertation
In the case of a collective dissertation, an application for acceptance as a PhD candidate (point 1) must be submitted for each applicant with the attachments outlined in points 2-7. The statement on the PhD procedure from the supervisor required under point 6 must be written separately for each applicant.
Please submit the application completely with all required documents.
All required documents must be certified (certificates/documents) or have original signatures (applications, etc.) and submitted no later than 3 weeks before the meeting.
General information or advice on PhD can also be found at the Nachwuchszentrum of the University of Bremen Bremen Early Career Researcher Development (BYRD).
The PhD board meets several times a year. The dates and deadlines for submitting applications can be found on our website.
Expenses for attending the meeting, cannot be reimbursed by us.
The applicant may attend the meeting.