Admission process
If you wish to pursue a doctorate at Leuphana Graduate School, you must submit an application for admission to the doctorate. Applications for admission are submitted electronically via the digital campus management system, myCampus. The schools set out the admission requirements in their doctoral regulations. You should therefore check carefully in advance whether you meet the requirements and which documents need to be submitted with your application for admission. In principle, you will always need:
- a qualifying degree
- a suitable topic, set out in a proposal
- a supervisor (as evidenced by the letter of acceptance and the supervision agreement)
Once admission has been granted, you must apply for enrolment as a doctoral candidate at the same time.
In three steps to admission
Find a supervisor and a topic
To start a doctorate at the Leuphana Graduate School, you should first find a supervisor and a research topic.
Apply for admission
Once you have found a supervisor and a topic, submit your application for admission.
Enrol as a doctoral student
Once you have been successfully admitted, you must still enrol as a doctoral student. Only then will your admission to the doctorate be complete.
Below, we have summarised the key information on the admissions and enrolment process for you.
To pursue a doctorate at Leuphana University, you will need a supervisor. You can choose from among the professors at Leuphana University Lüneburg, who conduct research as experts in their respective fields and teach on Leuphana’s Master’s programmes. Your proposed dissertation topic should be in line with the academic profile of your potential supervisor. You must establish contact with your potential supervisor yourself. To help you find a supervisor and make it easier for you to get an overview, the ‘Doctoral topics’ page lists numerous Leuphana professors who outline their main fields of research and potential dissertation topics, and provide details on how to make initial contact.
Supervisor’s confirmation
You should obtain a written statement from your supervisor – the confirmation of supervision. This statement includes an assessment of your academic qualifications, your thesis project and the relevance of your studies. You will need the confirmation of supervision for your application for admission.
Supervision agreement
The supervision agreement serves to clarify mutual expectations with the aim of making the supervision relationship transparent in terms of content and time. This also serves to ensure the quality of the planning and implementation of your doctoral project. You should therefore also use the first meetings with your potential supervisor to discuss the type of supervision. The supervision agreement must also be submitted to the Student Services together with the admission documents.
In order to be successfully admitted to a doctorate at Leuphana University, you will also need a research topic and a dissertation proposal. The purpose of the proposal is to outline the dissertation project and to demonstrate the relevance of the proposed topic. It provides a broad outline of the field of research and the methodology. The proposal must be submitted along with the admission documents.
The proposal is a description of your doctoral project of no more than five pages, and should include the provisional title of your thesis that you have agreed in preliminary meetings with your supervisor. Your proposal should outline your project in more detail, in part by answering the following questions:
- What question are you seeking to explore?
- What methods will you use?
- What is the current state of the art?
- What is the key literature?
The Leuphana Writing Centre regularly holds workshops on how to write a proposal.
In addition to supervision and the research topic or proposal, there are further formal requirements and conditions that you, as an applicant, must meet in order to be admitted to a doctorate. The individual faculties set out these requirements in their own doctoral regulations. To ensure you are successfully admitted to a doctorate, you should therefore familiarise yourself with your school’s doctoral regulations and find out about the specific provisions in advance.
The Doctoral Regulations define:
- the admission requirements,
- the procedure for thesis submission,
- the thesis defence procedure and
- criteria for thesis publication
The Doctoral Regulations also describe the structure of the doctoral courses and the responsibilities of the doctoral boards, reviewers’ committees and doctoral research groups at Leuphana University of Lüneburg.
For information on a cumulative thesis as an alternative to a monographic thesis, see ways of doing a doctorate.
The basic requirements include, amongst other things, a qualifying university degree and language skills.
University degree
Students applying for a doctorate should have a Diplom, Magister or Master's degree from a university or university of applied sciences, or have passed the 1st or 2nd Staatsexamen examination. Students must have passed their first degree with a grade higher than 2.6 (at least "gut" [good]).
For the first law Staatsexamen examination, a final grade of at least "befriedigend" [sufficient] is required.
Please make sure that your final grade is clearly stated on your certificates/transcripts. You cannot submit your grade at a later stage.
The equivalence of degrees from foreign universities shall be established on the basis of the recommendations by the Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen [Central Office for Foreign Education] at the Ständiges Sekretariat der Kultusministerkonferenz [Permanent Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs] (https://anabin.kmk.org/anabin.html), provided the degree in question is listed there. Please note, the university cannot carry out a preliminary examination on this regard.
For information on entering the doctorate with a Bachelor's degree (parallel admission to Master's and doctorate) Doctoral Track website.
Language skills
No proof of proficiency in Germanis required for admission to the doctoral programmes. You can write your thesis either in German or in English. However, the greater part of the doctoral courses are held in German. We therefore strongly recommend that you acquire the necessary level of German before starting your doctorate (e.g. DSH level 2 or TestDaF). You can also attend the International Center's Summer University to bring your German up to the required level, and the Language Centre can provide more information on the German classes on offer.
Please note:
For admissionsfrom the winter semester 2023/24 onwards, formal proof of English language skills is no longer required. Nevertheless, English remains an important academic language at Leuphana. An agreement on sufficient English language skills is regulated in the supervision agreement.
Application deadlines
There are no deadlines for doctoral applications. Applications can be submitted at any time for the current semester or subsequent semesters.
Finally you will apply for admission for a doctorate. Therefore, please use our digital campus management system myCampus.
If you encounter technical difficulties with myCampus while filling out the form or have questions about the process, please contact Student Services via email to adminpromotion@leuphana.de or via phone
initial letter A - H → Melanie Maselkowski | Phone: 04131-677-1407
initial letter I - O → Johanna Wille | Phone: 04131-677-1409
initial letter P - Z → Svenja Höwler | Phone: 04131-677-1417
To pursue a doctorate at Leuphana University, you must not only be admitted, but you must also enrol as a doctoral student. Upon enrolment, you as a doctoral candidate also become a member of the school in which you were admitted to the doctorate. Furthermore, as a doctoral candidate, you are thus granted certain rights (e.g. access to the intranet, e-papers in the library, public transport ticket, qualification fund) and obligations (e.g. payment of the semester fees), which only end when you are de-registered and your membership ends. Proof of membership is the student card or the certificate of enrolment.
The enrolment process is as follows:
First, your application will be assessed by Student Services and passed on to the competent doctoral board by the dean's office for the relevant school. The boards, which decide on admissions, generally meet at least twice a semester. Decisions are made on the basis of academic criteria and there are no quotas or limits. We are unfortunately not currently able to provide a preliminary assessment of your application.
Thereafter, you will receive a message informing you whether your application has been accepted or rejected. You can usually expect to receive this within two to three months (depending on the meeting date of the relevant doctoral committee). It will be sent to you by Student Services via myCampus and will contain further information on the enrolment process.
If you have been accepted, you need to complete the formal enrolment process with Student Services. Your acceptance letter will state the deadline for enrolment; it is usually 14 days from receipt of the admission.
You now need to pay the semester fee. Your enrolment will only be complete once the relevant fee has been received.
Transfer of semester contribution
If the semester contribution arrives on Leuphana University Lüneburg’s account by the deadline, you are enrolled and later re-registered. By paying the contribution, you declare that you want to begin or continue your degree programme. The day on which payment is received on the university account counts, the so-called value date. Please ensure that the correct amount is transferred and that the reference is indicated correctly and in full. In the case of a re-registration, please indicate your matriculation number (7 digits) as a reference. If you are enrolling, you must provide your applicant number (9 digits). Your surname and first name follow afterwards in each case.
Example:
- for a re-registration: 1234567, Smith, John or
- for an enrolment: 123456789, Smith, John.
Bank details of Leuphana University Lüneburg:
| Recipient | Leuphana Universität Lüneburg |
|---|---|
| IBAN | DE26 2505 0000 0199 9169 17 |
| BIC | NOLADE 2 HXXX |
| Bank | Norddeutsche Landesbank Hannover |
| Reference |
|
Semester fee
- Studentenwerk contribution: 150,00 €
- Contribution towards administrative expenses 75.00 €
- Student body contribution: 259,24 € (of which € 226,80 for the semester ticket, € 22,00 contribution for student self-administration, €10,44 for StadtRad etc.)
- TOTAL: 484,24 €
For doctoral students who receive a scholarship from public funds, a reduced semester fee applies:
- Studentenwerk contribution: 150,00 €
- Student body contribution: 259,24 € (of which € 226,80 for the semester ticket, € 22,00 contribution for student self-administration, €10,44 for StadtRad etc.)
- TOTAL: 409,24 €
In order to be eligible for the reduction, you must present proof of your scholarship to Student Services (a copy of the scholarship approval is sufficient here).
Student card
After your transfer of the semester contribution you will receive your student card and public transport ticket in your Leuphana App. The registration or re-registration is now complete.