Membership and roles as a doctoral candidate

As a doctoral candidate at NAT, you may have different roles; some are closely related to your Ph.D. project, and some to a lesser extend.

Not directly related to your Ph.D. project:

  • work contract, other Funding of your Ph.D. project

  • membership at external institutions, external graduate centers, and professional societies (DPG, GdCh etc.)

Different institutions: memberships and roles

  • TUM School of Natural Sciences: degree awarding institution. Here, you will pass your doctoral examination and obtain your doctoral degree.

  • Graduate Center of Natural Sciences (or other Graduate Centers at TUM): Qualification program.

  • TUM Graduate School: central organization at TUM that gives your doctoral program a structural framework.

  • External Graduate Centers, e.g., IMPRS, are not related to your Ph.D. project at TUM. You are a Ph.D. student at TUM, and your academic “home” is at TUM. “Conditions” applied from external institutions may relate to your employment contract but not your Ph.D. project at TUM.

Confirmation of Membership

Some institutions ask for a confirmation that you are registered as a candidate on the doctoral list of the TUM School of Natural Sciences and are a member of the TUM Graduate School.

You may download such a confirmation (in German and English) from your DocGS account:

  • open the tree “Qualification Program and Data Confirmation”

  • at the bottom, near “Membership / Mitgliedschaft” you will find a PDF “Membership Confirmation”

Funding of your Ph.D. project

Depending on the funding of your Ph.D. project and the location of your workplace, you are either an internal or an external Ph.D. student.

  • Work contract at TUM: you are a member of the scientific staff at TUM and an internal Ph.D. student.

  • Stipend or other funding with the workplace at TUM: You are a member of TUM and an internal Ph.D. student.

  • Contract with an external institution or company and no workplace at TUM: you are an external Ph.D. student and an external scientist at TUM. This means that your academic work on your Ph.D. is still performed at TUM and you have access to TUM ressources like IT and more, but in some sense you have less obligations than internal Ph.D. students, e. g. regarding the Active participation in the academic environment of TUM.

Membership at TUM: TUM-ID (TUM-Kennung)

Each doctoral candidate at NAT must obtain a TUM Account (TUM-Online account, TUM-ID, e.g. ab23cde).

The chair secretariats will help you set up the account (as a guest if applicable).

For Ph.D. candidates with external supervisors (i.e., supervisors not employed at TUM like MPI professors, honorary professors, etc.): The Dean’s Office manages the guest status in TUM-Online (please get in touch with promotion@nat.tum.de).

Attention:

If you already have an inactive TUM account or applicant’s account, please reuse this account and do not obtain a new one!

Once your account is set up, it will take some time before you can log in to various accounts.

Attention:

You can only log in / enter elements of the qualification program on our web server if the TUM online status is active (as employee or guest/external scientist). Alumni or expired guest statuses cannot log in.

Please enter your TUM E-Mail address in DocGS. In contrast to others, you may keep this (at least as a forwarding address) for the rest of your life. We recommend setting up a forwarding address to obtain important information in case you lose access to your TUM account.

TUM-IT has a FAQ on your TUM Account, Login, TUM ID, Password, TUMCard

Enrollment as a doctoral student at TUM

All doctoral candidates must enter the doctoral candidacy list, while enrollment is voluntary. Enrolled doctoral candidates must pay a base fee per semester

You generally have to be accepted on our list of doctoral candidates to enroll as a student at TUM.

As a doctoral student at TUM, you will obtain a TUM-ID, if you do not have one already. Please note that your chair or the Dean’s Office has to take care of your TUM account after your enrollment runs out.

Enrollment is NOT handled by the Graduate Center of Natural Sciences.

Further information on the enrollment process can be found in the TUM-GS Wiki.

Enrollment is handled by the TUM Center for Study and Teaching (TUM CST) - Admissions and Enrollment. They have more information on fees and a FAQ.