Public presentation at the faculty

Public presentations at the faculty are organised by the Directorate of Studies together with the StudiesServiceCentre. Each doctoral candidate holds a 10-minute presentation about their intended doctoral project, followed by a discussion with the respective doctoral advisory board and a short internal discussion of the board members. If two doctoral advisory boards are responsible for your research field, the StudiesServiceCentre will inform you in front of which board you will present your doctoral thesis project.

The supervisors are expected to attend the presentations of their candidates. The supervisors are invited to the board’s internal discussion, but do not have the right to contribute to the joint recommendation of the board. Before you register for the public presentation at the faculty, please make sure that your supervisors are available on the respective date. If they are only available for a specific time slot on that date, please inform the StudiesServiceCenter when you submit your documents.

Please bring the PowerPoint presentations with you on the day of your presentation. Deregistration is possible until four days before the presentation at the latest.

After the presentation, the StudiesServiceCentre will send you the comments of the board members on your research proposal and your presentation. This may take up to three weeks.

• The form R­egistration of the doctoral thesis topic and announcement of the supervisor/s SL/D11 (PDF) (The form has to be signed by all supervisors. If additional supervisors are not from the University of Vienna, you need to enclose their curriculum vitae and list of publications with the documents.)
• The form Regulations relating to good scientific practice BSP/W1E (PDF) 
• A research proposal (max 4,000 words not including literature, font size 12 pt., font Times New Roman, line spacing 1.5)
• A half-page abstract
• The confirmation that you have successfully conducted the Research Ethics Pre-Screening for PhD Projects 
• A curriculum vitae based on this form (DOCX)
• In the case of resubmission: one page about how the proposal has been revised, signed by the candidate and their supervisors
• If required: the form Approval of financial support of the doctoral thesis project as part of a doctoral/PhD degree programme BSP/W3E (PDF) (Please submit this form, if a department of the University of Vienna needs to provide special resources for the doctoral thesis project, such as access to labs or technical equipment.)
   

The research proposal plays a major role when planning your research. It is a thematically, theoretically and methodologically concise description of your doctoral thesis project and should not exceed 4,000 words (excluding references).

Guidelines for writing a research proposal (in English and German)

English: Guidelines for writing a doctoral research proposal (PDF) for the public presentation at the faculty and evaluation criteria

German: Richtlinien für das Verfassen eines Exposés (PDF) für die fakultätsöffentliche Präsentation und Beurteilungskriterien

Doctoral candidates who successfully passed the public presentation at the Faculty need to proceed according to the specifics of their research field. All candidates can do the regular Research Ethics Screening of the Faculty of Social Sciences which includes not only an online self-assessment but also a review by the Institutional Review Board of the Faculty (IRB). In several research fields, candidates are encouraged to do the regular Research Ethics Screening before they start empirical research/field work. Please discuss your next steps with your supervisors.