Doctorate procedure

Please read the doctoral regulations of  August, 18 2010, (in German only) if you are aiming for a doctorate at the Faculty of Psychology and Human Movement Science.

Please apply for admission to the doctorate online and attach the following documents (PDF, max. 10 MB).

Please attach the following documents to your application for admission in accordance with § 4 (1) of the doctoral regulations and use the forms prepared for this:

1. Certificates and qualifications that are required in accordance with § 3 of the doctoral regulations
2. CV in tabular form with the relevant activities and experiences related to the intended doctoral project
3. Explanation as to whether a registration for a doctorate has been made in the past or whether a doctoral project is being carried out at another university or faculty
4. Exposé of the dissertation in German or English (please contact the prospective supervisor of your dissertation if you have any questions about the content or form of your exposé)
5. Written statement by a professor from the Institute of Human Movement Science on the synopsis and confirmation of supervision for the doctoral project
6. Proof of sufficient language skills according to § 3 (5) of the doctoral regulations (this is evidenced by applicants with the mother tongue German / English through the curriculum vitae, applicants with another mother tongue submit appropriate proof of the classifications)

With completeness of all documents, the application has to be submitted via the online tool Docata - https://docata.uni-hamburg.de. To do this, register with your user ID if you are already a member of the University of Hamburg or with a Docata account. For further information on registration and admission via the online tool Docata, please see: Docata FAQs General (https://www.faq-docata.uni-hamburg.de/allgemein.html)

In addition, please send all documents as a scan in PDF format to the responsible officer or the responsible officer for doctorates at the Institute of Human Movement.

Applications for admission to doctoral studies must be submitted by June 30 (for the summer semester) and by December 31 (for the winter semester). The doctoral committee decides on the application within four weeks. You will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of your application in Docata (if necessary also about other conditions associated with the admission). After admission to the doctorate, it must be ensured that you are familiar with the "Statutes for ensuring good scientific practice and avoiding scientific misconduct at the University of Hamburg". To do this, please submit this signed and completed declaration after your admission.

After being admitted to the faculty, you need to enrol at the Campus Center via STiNE.

Further information on the enrollment process can be found here: 
https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/campuscenter/bewerbung/promotion.html

The entrollment can be done online. To do so, you will need all certificates of completed university examinations and the letter of admission from the Institute of Human Movement Science.

The written doctoral thesis is written in German or English. An application to write the dissertation in another academic language can be sent to the doctoral committee. It is possible to submit a cumulative dissertation. Please note § 7 (2b) of the doctoral regulations.

All aids and aids must be specified in your dissertation. You have to affirm that you have written the dissertation yourself,  that you have not used any tools other than those specified and that you have not used any commercial doctoral advice. This declaration must be included at the end of the dissertation. Please use this template to do so.

Your dissertation must contain the following information on the title page:

• Name of the author
• Name of the Faculty of Psychology and Human movement Science and the Institute of Human Movement Science
• Designation as a dissertation submitted to the University of Hamburg
• Year of submission

The names of the reviewers must be mentioned on a cover sheet. The dissertation must contain summaries of your results in German and English as an appendix, as well as a list of publications resulting from the dissertation.

The application for the opening of the examination procedure (submission of the dissertation) is made online in Docata. In doing so, you upload the electronic form of the dissertation thesis (in PDF format) and, if necessary, further documents in Docata. To log in to Docata (https://docata.uni-hamburg.de) use your user ID (e.g. Bbb3540) of the University of Hamburg. You will find the online application in a box on the start page.

In its meeting on January 12, 2022 the doctoral committee of the Institute of Human Movement Science decided the following criteria for cumulative dissertations:

• A cumulative dissertation should consist of at least three thematically related papers in recognized publication organs with a peer review system that are relevant for your own research. At least one publication should have been published internationally.
• The individual publications should already have been published or at least accepted ("in press", "accepted"). This should be proven, e.g. via a screenshot of the journal website, in the case of "in press" from the correspondence with the editors.
• At least two of the papers should be under first authorship. In the case of authoring teams, the doctoral candidate must have made a significant contribution to the further work - each contribution with authoring teams must be precisely specified.
• The doctoral student must indicate his/her individual ownership of the work.
• The submitted dissertation should contain a section, German ´Manteltext´(ca. 30 Din-A4-Seiten) in which the problem connecting the three publications is theoretically developed. The scientific gains of the individual results should be presented and it should include an overall discussion.
• The dissertation is usually evaluated by two reviewers. At least one reviewer must not be involved as co-author in any of the individual papers submitted.

If you have already been admitted to a doctoral thesis based on your application for a doctorate, but then want to switch to a cumulative doctoral project, you must submit an application to the doctoral committee and upload a scan of the application (as a PDF document) in Docata (https://docata.uni-hamburg.de/home). Such an application can also be made outside the submission deadline 30.06. (for the summer semester) and 31.12. (for the winter semester).

The doctoral committee at the Institute of Human Movement sets up an examination committee when you open your doctorate within four weeks of submitting your dissertation. This commission consists of three members who have been granted the rights and obligations of university lecturers in accordance with Section 6 (4). At least two members of the examination board must be lecturer at the Institute of Human Movement  at the University of Hamburg. As a rule, the supervisor of the dissertation belongs to the examination board as the first reviewer. No more than one university professor who has retired or has been exempted should belong to the examination board.

The members of the examination board can be proposed by you within the online application in Docata (https://docata.uni-hamburg.de/home). The doctoral committee appoints a chairperson of your examination board.

For each dissertation, two reviews are made independently within twelve weeks. The doctoral committee appoints the supervisor as well as another member of the examination board as a reviewer. At least one reviewer must be a professor at the Institute for Human Movement Science at the University of Hamburg and at least one reviewer must belong to the subject area of ​​the dissertation.

If the two reviews differ by more than one grade, a further review can be requested by the doctoral committee after consulting the members of the examination board.

After completion of the assessment of the dissertation, the written doctoral thesis with the assessments is displayed for three weeks (four weeks during the lecture-free period) in the Academic office at the Institute for Movement Science at the University of Hamburg. All members of the Faculty of Psychology and Human Movement Science who are authorized to supervise a dissertation are granted access in accordance with § 6 (2/3). You can also submit a written statement that is attached to the doctoral documents. The display of the dissertation will be informed accordingly. One week before the date of the disputation, you can view the reports on your dissertation in the Academic office at the Institute of Human Movement Science at the University of Hamburg.

After the expiry of the display period, the examination board decides on the acceptance or rejection of the dissertation, your admission to the disputation and the grade of your dissertation. The assessment criteria can be found in § 10 (1) of the doctoral regulations. You will be informed by your examination board after the dissertation has been accepted. Together with your examination board, you will set a date for the disputation, which should take place within three months after receipt of the last report.

The disputation takes place in German or English. An application to hold the disputation in another academic language can be submitted to the examination board. The defense consists of two parts, a twenty-minute lecture by you, in which you present the results of the dissertation, and a defense of the dissertation. The disputation should last at least 60 and at most 90 minutes. After the disputation, the grade for the disputation and the overall grade are determined.

After the final grade has been determined by the examination board, you will receive an interim certificate in which the title of your dissertation and the respective grades are recorded. After receiving the certificate, you may not hold the doctorate yet.

The dissertation must be published no later than two years after completion of the doctorate. If this is not possible within the deadline, the chairperson of the doctoral committee can extend this deadline on request.

The number of copies you submit depends on the form of publication. The State and University Library of Hamburg will inform you regarding this.

After the dissertation has been published, a doctoral certificate will be issued in German or, if requested, in English. The doctoral subject, the title of your dissertation, the respective grades and the date of the disputation are listed. After receiving this certificate, you are entitled to hold the doctorate

Please note the guidelines of good scientific practice.

You can find more information under

• https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/forschung/forschungsfoerderung/gute-wissenschaftliche-praxis.html
• Satzung gute wissenschaftliche Praxis
• http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/dfg_im_profil/reden_stellungnahmen/download/empfehlung_wiss_praxis_1310.pdf