Doctorate at the Faculty of Technology
Overview
The initial steps of every doctorate are connecting with an advisor and settling on a research topic, along with securing funding. You then have two options to pursue your doctorate:
- individual doctorate
(freie Promotion) - doctoral programme
(strukturierte Promotion / Promotionsstudiengang)
Doctoral programmes bring together PhD students with individual research questions sharing joint scientific interests. A central management bundles academic activities including and beyond your PhD project. For further details, see below.
At the Faculty of Technology, you have the opportunity to obtain the doctoral degree in the natural sciences (Dr. rer. nat.) or engineering (Dr.-Ing.). A fast-track doctorate may be possible in exceptional cases, including bridging studies or completing a master’s degree concurrently.
In most cases, the final thesis is shaped as a monograph, but a cumulative form is also possible.
For the final steps, an individual examination committee is arranged. It is composed of internal and/or external professors as referees, a postdoctoral researcher, and another professor of the department chairing the committee. After the thesis has been reviewed by the referees, the work is presented, discussed and finally graded by the committee. This disputation can be public or not, depending on the candidate’s preference or aspects such as patent-protection.
Once the thesis has been published, which can be done electronically, you receive your doctoral certificate. Congratulations!
For further details on the process, see our guidelines in the "Downloads" section of the right sidebar.
Doctoral progammes
(strukturierte Promotion | Promotionsstudiengänge)
Our doctoral (study) programmes are supervised by a steering committee of experienced and dedicated professors, and provide central management, quality control and individual support by a scientific coordinator.
Doctoral students with a common background sharing related scientific goals have the chance to become part of a network and to team up for joint academic endeavours.
A wide range of courses allows students to expand their knowledge and skills across various scientific disciplines. In addition to the academic and scientific training provided by the program, students also have the opportunity to enhance their teamwork, communication, and presentation skills. A final certificate confirms their participation in the doctoral and all achievements completed as part of the individual study plan are documented in a detailed transcript.
If you are unsure, you can go ahead with the individual doctorate and enrol into a doctoral study programme later if you want.
- Qualification programme
Students in a doctoral programme, in addition to the research project, complete a qualification programme totalling 30 ECTS credit points. It is individually designed in agreement with the scientific coordinator and the advisors according to the scientific background of a student and the PhD project.
An individual study plan covers various academic aspects:
- Dedicated courses: Appropriate courses can be chosen from the electronic course catalogue. Furthermore, external courses such as lectures at partner institutions, summer schools or tutorials can be acknowledged.
- Group seminars: In group seminars, own research as well as scientific literature is presented and discussed.
- Organisation of workshops: Organising or conducting a workshop provides the opportunity to acquire knowledge that is relevant in a scientific context.
- Teaching assistance: By assisting in teaching, students acquire skills in didactically preparing and concisely presenting matters, speaking freely to a group, and leading discussions.
- Publication: By publishing own research work, students learn to present (intermediate) results clearly within strict page limitations, and to embed it into the current state of research. Furthermore, the participation in scientific conferences allows for exchange of ideas and experiences with other researchers. For a contribution (as author or co-author) to a pertinent international conference, credits can be acquired, including presentations (talk or poster); also for articles (as author or co-author) in a pertinent international journal. By participating in the peer-reviewing process, aspects such as critical assessment and objective discussion of scientific work is practised.
- Mentoring of Master, or Bachelor thesis projects and student projects: Supervising student projects fosters valuable experience in research guidance, project management, and leadership.
- Additional qualifications: Credit points can also be issued for acquiring PhD related qualifications outside the students’ own professional fields such as, for instance, scientific writing, patent and copy rights, business economics, or project management.
- Intelligent Systems
The interdisciplinary doctoral programme Intelligent Systems (ISY) aims to offer PhD students interdisciplinary academic qualifications to design and implement the interaction with future A.I. and intelligent systems. It is closely connected to the central academic institute CITEC (research center on cognitive interaction technology), which funnels and catalyses Bielefeld University‘s multidisciplinary expertise in studying natural and artificial intelligent agents that interact with and learn from different kinds of environments. Going beyond short-cut learning or emulating human-like behaviour on the surface, we aim to unravel and model the cognitive abilities needed to make interaction technology compatible with humans‘ values and expectations about how meaning and actions are shared or information is communicated.
The doctoral programme ISY is jointly run by the following departments:
- Faculty of Biology
- Faculty of Linguistics and and Literary Studies
- Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science
- Faculty of Technology
- Bioinformatics
In the life sciences, new technologies enable the generation of new experimental data quicker than it can be interpreted. Technological advances not only allow to gather more data, but also open new research fields like, e.g., single cell, metagenomic or pangenomic studies.
The aim of the doctoral programme Bioinformatics is to train outstanding young researchers with a focus on bioinformatic methods development.
To offer a high level of support, this programme involves direct supervision by at least a second supervisor and indirect supervision by the faculty, and reporting in form of annual written reports or progress talks. Individually arranged research stays at partner institutions are well received items of the study plan.
Group activities such as a regular doctoral seminar and retreats foster networking and collaboration.
Admission and enrolment
Every doctoral researcher at Bielefeld University has to be officially accepted as a doctoral candidate by the department, and has to enrol at the university’s Student Office. This also applies for the individual doctorate (freie Promotion). External doctoral students can request an academic leave of absence.
If you are interested in becoming a member of a structured doctoral programme, consult its coordinator. If the steering committee of the programme grants admission, this is confirmed in the acceptance procedure and allows your enrolment in the according PhD study regulations.
Please be aware that the doctoral study programmes do not have any positions or scholarships to offer. Funding questions, as well as identifying a doctoral advisor and a research project, should be addressed before the enrolment.
- General procedure: Details on the admission process are described in our guidelines in the "Downloads" section of the right sidebar (top of the page).
- Intelligent Systems: Contact the coordinator to ask for admission to the doctoral programme. Include an abstract of your planned PhD project, along with a draft version of the form required for acceptance as a doctoral candidate (for submission to the Student Office).
- Bioinformatics: Contact the coordinator to apply for admission to the doctoral programme. Include a short motivation letter, PhD project description, curriculum vitae and Master’s transcript. The admission procedure further involves an application talk and a short interview.