Closing Phase

Once you have completed your dissertation, you submit it and a number of other documents to the competent dean's office to start the doctoral assessment process. Doctoral candidates at the School of Sustainability submit their documents to Student Services. You can find information on the documents to be submitted with your thesis in the relevant doctoral regulations in the “submission of the thesis” section.

Once you have submitted your dissertation, the doctoral board will formally launch the doctoral assessment process and, if it has not already done so, appoint the members of the reviewer's committee. The reviewers have three months to assess the thesis. You will receive their reports at the end of this period at the latest, and your dissertation will be available to be read by members of the University in the dean's office together with the reports.

If your dissertation is graded as befriedigend [satisfactory] or higher, it will be accepted and your disputation will be held at the end of the period for which your thesis is available to read.

The period between submission of your dissertation and your disputation is usually around four to six months.

The disputation is the oral defence of your dissertation. It is your opportunity to present your research findings, to defend those findings by responding to criticism and to engage with opposing views on a sound theoretical basis. The content of the doctoral defence thus builds on your thesis topic; you should also draw on the written reviewers' reports. It is also possible for disputations to extend to related areas of the field in question.

Disputations are held in German or English and are generally held four weeks after acceptance of the dissertation. The date and time are set by the chair of the reviewer's committee. Doctoral candidates open the 90-minute disputation with a presentation lasting 20 to 30 minutes.

A meeting of the reviewers' committee is held immediately after the disputation to decide on the result and award.
You can find more information on the disputation, including the option of organising a disputation as a secure video/online conference, in the doctoral regulations.

Preparation for the disputation

For doctoral candidates just about to complete their thesis or who have just completed their thesis, regular disputation courses are offered through our qualification hub (category researching). The course is structured like a workshop and is designed to offer scope for participants' own disputation preparation alongside the necessary input phases. This opportunity for suggestions and feedback from a large group should allow you to test the approaches you have developed in front of an audience and to familiarise yourself with the unpredictable "question situation" of a disputation.

Your thesis must be published within one year of your successful disputation and thus the completion of your doctorate. The form and number of deposit copies to be submitted to the library depends in part on whether your thesis is cumulative or a monography. You will find the exact provisions governing publication of dissertations in the Doctoral Regulations.

Please also note the publication information on the library pages, where you will also find the form for submitting electronic theses.

The library will issue you with proof of publication once you have submitted your deposit copies. To receive your doctoral certificate, please submit the proof of publication to your dean's office. The issue of your doctoral certificate signals the end of your doctorate and allows you to use the doctoral title.

More information on publishing at Leuphana University can be found in the media and information center.

If you wish to leave the university and have not yet completed your doctoral degree, please apply for de-registration. Upon de-registration, you will lose the right to take final examinations (including submission of your dissertation and disputation).

If you do not re-enroll for the next semester or do not pay the semester fee for the next semester, you will be de-registered by Student Services at the end of the current semester.

If you have successfully completed your doctoral degree, Student Services will automatically de-register you at the end of the semester in which you took your disputation.

A full refund of semester fees is possible if the de-registration is processed in time before the start of the semester or no later than one month after the start of classes. Otherwise, no refund is possible for the current semester.

If you have any questions regarding de-registration, please contact adminpromotion@leuphana.de