Doctorate and Habilitation

If you do not yet have a supervisor, you must first find a supervising professor who is a member of the doctoral committee of faculty 7.

Together with your supervisor, you will draw up an agreement on doctoral studies including the required qualification program (file only available in German).

If you hold a foreign university degree, you will additionally need to complete the Application for Declaration of Formal Equivalence of Foreign Degrees.

You must now register via the campus management system C@MPUS and submit an application for admission as a doctoral student to the Graduate Academy GRADUS.

The Graduate Academy GRADUS will check your documents and send them either directly to the Dean's Office (if you have a German university degree) or (for foreign degrees) first to the Rector's Office and after the Rector's approval to the Dean's Office. In the case of degrees not related to the subject (i.e. all areas not covered by Faculty 7), in the case of Dipl.-Ing. (FH), in the case of M.Sc. (Fach)Hochschule, in the case of dual universities, in the case of foreign degrees, etc., the guidelines of the faculty for doctoral admission available to the supervisors will be applied and, if necessary, additional requirements (e.g. examinations or course works) will be imposed. In case of doubt, you can send an informal mail with CV and all necessary certificates to the Dean's Office for coordination with the Doctorate Committee Chairperson, so that you are aware of the conditions before applying.

As soon as the dean's office has received your doctoral file, the doctoral committee will review your documents.

» After the examination, you will receive a notification of acceptance as a doctoral candidate, if necessary with additional requirements, from the chairperson of the doctoral committee.

The doctoral committee will also send a copy of the acceptance notification to GRADUS, where it will be posted to your account.

When you receive the notification of acceptance from the doctoral committee of your faculty, you must enroll as a doctoral student. Though, under certain conditions you are exempt from this requirement. Please check with GRADUS and/or your supervisor.

The following documents must be submitted or sent to the Dean's Office for submission of the dissertation:

• Application for admission to the examination and confirmation of maturity, including proof of the publications required at the time of submission (sample letter in German)
• informal confirmation from your supervisor that the qualification program has been completed
• for cumulative dissertation theses: corresponding form and additional sheets
• Several bound copies of your dissertation:
  • 1 copy for the dean's office
  • 1 copy for the supervisor
  • 1 copy for each co-supervisor

The printed copies should be bound in such a way that the cover page can be read (either transparent foil or printed cardboard, please observe the design specification for the title page (in German) (sample as Word document)). Structural design according to the manuscript guidelines of the university library in the appendix of the doctoral regulations. The copies can also be printed on both sides, but must be in DIN A4 format.

• Sending the dissertation as a pdf file by mail to the dean's office.
• Please provide your private contact details, especially your e-mail address, in order to ensure communication even after you have left the University of Stuttgart.
• In case of external co-reviewers, the Dean's Office also needs their contact details (full title, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number).

Deadline:

• Submit to the Dean's Office no later than the Friday before the Faculty Council meeting (check the Committee Dates, in German - look for "Fakultätsrat").

When the doctoral file and the supporting copies are provided, the examination procedure is initiated and the examination board is appointed by the doctoral committee.

» You will receive written confirmation about the initiation of the examination procedure.

After the initiation of the procedure, the Dean's Office requests the reports from all reviewers in the examination board. These should be available to the Dean's Office within 6 weeks.

Upon receipt of the final review,the dissertation and the reports are made available to all members of the doctoral committee for a 14-day review period.

» You will receive information about the start of the review period by e-mail.

After the end of the review period, the date of the docroral examination can be fixed and communicated to the Dean's Office, who will issue the invitation according to applicable deadlines (generally the invitation must be issued one week before the exam). The examination should take place within 3 months after the opening of the doctoral procedure.

» You will be notified by e-mail about the invitation.

The oral doctoral examination is conducted as follows:

The total examination time is 90 minutes, which includes:

• A public lecture with free choice of media on the dissertation topic of 30 minutes duration followed by a short discussion. Non-affiliates of the University are admitted.
• The oral examination with a duration of at least 60 minutes.

Depending on the type of publication (online or print only), you must usually submit a prescribed number of printed copies to the University Library within one year of the oral examination.

The University Library informs you on its website what layout the dissertation must have, what possibilities there are for publication and how many printed copies you have to hand in.

Publication series "Stuttgarter Maschinenbau"

Starting in 2022, dissertations can be published in the "Stuttgarter Maschinenbau" series. Further information can be found here.

Please refer to §13 of the doctoral regulations for further details.

The doctoral certificate is usually sent to the main examiner, who hands it over to the applicant.

The doctor title can only be used once the doctoral degree certificate has been
presented.