The starting point for a doctorate at Technical University of Applied Sciences Augsburg is to contact a professor who will supervise the dissertation.
In principle, this is possible at all seven faculties of the technical university.
The technical university's doctoral supervisor usually acts as an assessor in the cooperative doctoral procedure.
The requirements for a doctorate are based on the doctoral regulations of the respective faculty of the cooperating university, which awards the doctorate upon successful completion. It should be noted that the doctoral degree regulations of different universities can vary greatly - sometimes even from faculty to faculty.
As a rule, a very good university degree is required for admission to doctoral studies. It may be the case that additional examinations must be taken at the cooperating university for admission to the doctorate.
A doctorate usually takes between three and six years - as long as you work on it full-time. There is no specific schedule for dissertations.
A successful doctoral thesis confirms the ability to carry out independent academic work. This should be taken to heart as a basic principle: the focus of a doctoral thesis is on scientific research into topics that were previously unknown - worldwide.
A doctoral thesis begins with the identification of a research question that is to be investigated as part of the thesis. This is done in close consultation with the supervising professor and the professor at the cooperating university. It is important that the research question is suitable for a doctorate. There is usually a close connection to the supervising professors' areas of expertise.
The topic of the dissertation is often determined in the first year of academic work.
The dissertation itself is usually written in parallel with the academic work, during which publications in specialist journals, so-called papers, are already being produced. Some universities even allow a cumulative dissertation consisting of several publications in specialist journals. In some cases, the preparation of publications is mentioned as a prerequisite for the doctoral examination in the doctoral regulations.
A doctoral certificate from the cooperating university is usually only issued after the dissertation has been published and a doctoral examination has been passed. This usually involves “defending” the completed thesis in front of the first and second examiners and assessor(s). The defence is often followed by an oral examination of the doctoral candidate. The exact procedure is regulated in the doctoral degree regulations. The dissertation is usually only published with the approval of the supervising professors and the approval of the professorship of the faculty at the cooperating university.
