Acceptance of the dissertation and doctoral examination

Appointment of the examining committee and assessment

The Dean’s Office directly requests the supervisor, who typically acts as the first examiner, to recommend members for the examination committee.

According to the doctoral degree regulations, the presidency and at least one reviewer from the exam committee must be a university lecturer at NAT.

For reasons of good scientific practice, the second or third reviewers should prepare an independent review. They should not be too close to the supervisor or candidate. On the other hand, they should be very familiar with the dissertation topic.

The Dean has the authority to accept this suggestion or alter the committee. Once the committee is appointed, its members and the candidate will be notified. Every committee member will also receive a copy of the thesis.

The Dean’s office requests the written reports from the reviewers.

Acceptance of the dissertation (“Umlauf-Verfahren”)

Following the assessment of a doctoral thesis by all examiners as “passed” or better, the dissertation and the expert opinions are submitted to the corresponding “Acceptance committee” of the TUM School of Natural Sciences.

At present, four acceptance committees are established:

• Acceptance committee Physics
• Acceptance committee Chemistry
• Acceptance committee Biosciences
• Acceptance committee Engineering

Professors are required to submit their statements of either “accept” or “reject” for the thesis within a period of seven days. If the decision is “rejection,” specific reasons must be provided. In the case of acceptance, a comment may be included. These reasons and comments are then relayed to the School Executive Board or the examination committee. The identities of the voters (or the authors of comments and reasons) are not disclosed to the examination committee or the candidate.

After the seven-day period has passed, the dissertation is accepted if there are enough “accept” statements and no “reject” statements. For acceptance committees with 20 to 39 members, fifteen positive votes are required, while for those with 40 or more members twenty votes are required.

During the “Umlauf-Verfahren” (circulation procedure), it is the candidate’s responsibility to actively seek the required “accept” statements.

Once you have received an email that your Umlauf-Verfahren (acceptance procedure) started, you might have an overview of the current status at DSSNAT. You will not see who voted, just the number of votes.

Oral examination

After completing the acceptance procedure (Umlauf-Verfahren), the candidate is responsible for coordinating the exam date and location with the examiners and then submitting the agreed-upon date to the Dean’s office. Since the exam is open to all examiners at NAT, it should ideally take place in a NAT building (or at least in a room at TUM). Once the “Umlauf” process is finished, the Dean’s office will announce the exam date, ensuring that it is at least seven days after the announcement.

The Dean’s office will officially invite examiners and candidates to the oral exam.

PhD committees and exam dates are made public by the Dean’s office. The oral defense of your PhD is generally open for all examiners at NAT. The exam committees could decide to open it or a part of it for other persons as well. Please clarify this directly with your exam committee.

The Dean’s office will provide the necessary examination documents to the committee chair, who will return the completed documents to the Dean’s office after the oral exam. The Dean’s office will then forward them to the central examination office.