Completing your PhD

The anticipated date of submission

The expected submission date should be notified to the center director by your main supervisor 3-4 months in advance. Normally, it should not take more than five months from submission to the defence.

Approval of the training component

Before submitting the thesis, the educational component must be approved. To get the educational component approved, you must document that all mandatory and elective courses have been passed and that you have fulfilled the requirements for presentation, responses, and participation in conferences.

If external courses need to be included in your educational component, valid documentation (course certificate or transcript of records) must be attached. Course name, number of credits, and place of study must be specified in the documents, which must be approved by the head of the program.

Approval of the educational component is handled by PhD advisors. Send an email to post@vid.no, and mark this with «Application for approval of the educational component for PhD student (first name and last name)».

The application will be processed within four weeks.

When the educational component is approved, you will receive a confirmation. This confirmation must be attached when submitting the thesis.

VID is responsible for appointing the Evaluation Committee.

The process is as follows:

• The main supervisor for the candidate submits a proposal for committee members, 3-4 months before the planned submission. The proposal must include "Form for suggesting committee members" and "Declaration of impartiality".
• You will be informed of the proposal for the evaluation committee, with the opportunity to comment. As a student, you have a duty to disclose any disqualifications or other significant matters that may affect the evaluation of your thesis.
• The center director prepares a proposal for the committee, which is then processed by the Doctoral Committee, together with any comments from you. You will not have access to the Doctoral Committee's assessment of the proposed committee composition.
• The evaluation committee is appointed by the leader of the Doctoral Committee based on their processing of the case, often before the submission of the thesis.

• The thesis, including all attachments, should be sent by email to post@vid.no. Mark the email subject with «Submission of PhD thesis First Name Last Name». The thesis must be submitted in both PDF and Word format and cannot be withdrawn after submission. You will receive a confirmation that your thesis has been received.

Note:

• The length of a monograph should not exceed 100,000 words. A monograph exceeding 120,000 words will not be assessed.
• The length of a thesis based on articles should be between 50 and 100 pages (equivalent to 20,000 to 40,000 words).
• In order to submit a thesis (monograph and article-based) exceeding the approved length, you must have approval prior to submission. Submit an application outlining the rationale (max. 400 words) for the consideration of the Chair of the Doctoral Committee at CWCR: smg-phd-support@vid.no / Chair of the Doctoral Committee at CDP: SDP-PHD-support@vid.no. Attach the confirmation of approval to your thesis submission.

The following attachments should be attached to your thesis submission:

• Application for submission of the thesis
• Thesis with appendices
• For questions regarding the digital version of the article-based thesis, contact your PhD advisor and see guidelines.
• Documentation of required approval/recommendations from REC, SIKT, etcetera.
• Declaration of co-authorship (if applicable)
• Publication form
• Documentation of approved training component
• Press release form

See also

• Regulations relating to the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at VID Specialized University (FOR-2015-12-11-1666)
• Guidelines and supplementary provisions for the PhD programmes at VID Specialized University

The thesis will be sent to the Evaluation Committee immediately after submission. You will be informed of the members of your Evaluation Committee after submission.

The deadline for comments on the composition of the Committee is one week after you have been informed of it. Comments should be sent by email to post@vid.no and marked «Comments on composition of PhD evaluation committee First Name Last Name».

After submission, a check will be made to ensure that all formal requirements for thesis submission have been met. A plagiarism check will also be conducted. You will be contacted if there are any errors or deficiencies in your submission. If the plagiarism check raises suspicions of a breach of recognized research ethics standards, the procedure in VID's guidelines for processing individual cases of possible scientific misconduct will be followed.

You may apply to correct formal errors in the thesis (errata list). This application must be submitted no later than four weeks before the Evaluation Committee submits its recommendation. Send the application to post@vid.no and mark it «Errata list for First Name Last Name». You can only submit the errata list once. You will receive a confirmation by email.

The following documents must be attached to the application:

1. A complete list of errors to be corrected (errata list)
2. Electronic version (in both Word and PDF formats) of the thesis in its corrected version.

The Evaluation Committee has a deadline of three months to submit its statement. During this period, you are not allowed to contact assessment committee members. If the assessment committee needs it, they may ask you for additional information and to submit background material. Likewise, your supervisor may be asked to explain their role in the work on the dissertation. In all cases, contact with you or your supervisor should be made through the leader of the Doctoral Committee.

The Evaluation Committee operates according to VID's guidelines for assessment committees. There are separate guidelines for the Commission Coordinator.

The tentative date for the defence and trial lecture is usually set about four weeks after the Evaluation Committee has started its work. You and your supervisor will be informed of possible proposals for the defence date before it is set. It is assumed that the main supervisor has the opportunity to meet.

You will be notified of the committee's recommendation immediately after VID has received it.

You have a deadline of ten days after receiving the recommendation to make comments on it. Comments should be sent to the college by email: post@vid.no, and marked «Comment on PhD. dissertation first name last name».

The Evaluation Committee may recommend in a preliminary recommendation that the dissertation be revised before the final recommendation is submitted. The recommendation is submitted by the assessment committee within the deadline, which is three months from the submission of the dissertation.

The recommendation will point out aspects of the task that the candidate should revise and give a deadline for submitting the revised version. The deadline is normally three months after you have received the recommendation to revise. Revising your dissertation is not a guarantee that it will be approved. You can find the procedure for recommending a revision of a dissertation in the PhD regulations.

The Doctoral Committee processes the recommendation from the Evaluation Committee. If the dissertation is approved for defence, the leader of the Doctoral Committee appoints the sample lecture and defence committee, including who will be the first and second opponents (this is not determined by the committee itself).

The following extract from the Regulations relating to the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at VID Specialized University describes the assessment process:

§ 16. Processing the assessment committee’s recommendation

Based on the assessment committee’s recommendation, the University decides whether the PhD dissertation is worthy of public defence.

Unanimous recommendation

If the committee’s decision is unanimous and VID Specialized University supports this decision, a decision is made in accordance with the unanimous recommendation.

If VID Specialized University has reasons to doubt that the committee’s unanimous recommendation should be taken into account, the assessment committee must provide clarification and/or the Specialized University must appoint two new experts to give individual comments about the thesis. Such additional or individual comments must be given to the PhD student, who has the right to review and respond to the comments.

VID Specialized University will make a decision based on the recommendation and the additional comments.

Split recommendation

If the committee submits a split recommendation and the Specialized University supports the majority’s comments, the decision is made in accordance with the majority’s comments. If the committee submits a split recommendation and the Specialized University supports the minority’s comments, further clarification can be sought from the assessment committee and/or two new experts can be appointed to provide individual comments about the thesis. Such additional or individual comments must be given to the PhD student, who has the right to review and respond to the comments. If the two new experts support the original majority’s recommendation, this recommendation will be followed.

After the comments from the two new experts have been reviewed and assessed, the PhD student must be informed of the result.

In the event of that a PhD thesis is found not worthy of defence, and is rejected, there is a six-month waiting period before the dissertation can be resubmitted.

The dissertation can only be resubmitted once. The resubmission must indicate that the dissertation has been submitted previously and has been rejected. A new assessment committee shall be appointed, and normally at least one member from the original committee shall be reappointed.

VID organizes the trial lecture and public defence. VID will order lunch for the chair of the defence, the members of the Evaluation Committee, the candidate and the supervisor(s). The student is responsible for the doctoral dinner/reception after the defence.

The college usually makes a reprint of the thesis in 11-15 copies for the center, library, committee, defense supervisor, and supervisors. The candidate receives five copies free of charge. If you want extra copies of your thesis, you can request these when submitting the thesis. You are responsible for covering the costs of extra copies.

The topic of the trial lecture will be announced 10 working days before the date of the trial lecture.

The trial lecture is held before the public defence, and often on the same day. It is held in the language of the thesis, unless you have applied for and received approval to use a different language. A total of 45 minutes is allocated for the trial lecture. It is important that this timeframe is used and respected. There will be an opportunity for questions after this. The assessment committee will be present and will adjudicate the trial lecture.

Section 19-1 of the Regulations relating to the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at VID Specialized University and the additional provisions stipulate the following:

“The trial lecture is an independent part of the PhD examination and must be related to a specified subject. This is to test the PhD student’s ability to acquire knowledge beyond the subject of the thesis and to convey this knowledge in a lecture. The subject of the lecture should be related to, but go beyond the topic of the thesis”. (Regulations)

“The trial lecture is designed for the doctoral candidate to demonstrate his/her ability to communicate research-based knowledge”. (Additional provisions)

After the trial lecture is held, it is given a pass or fail. The result will be announced to the audience at the start of the public defence. A substantiated explanation will be given in the event of a fail.

The dissertation is the public defense of the thesis for the degree of Ph.D. The time and place are announced at least 10 working days prior to the defence being held.

The public defence is held in the language of the thesis, unless otherwise agreed. The public defence starts with the candidate presenting the thesis topic, material, methods, analyses, findings and conclusions. The timeframe for this is 15–20 minutes.

1. Entry procession. The doctoral candidate meets at the agreed time and place for the procession. Practical information will be given to the audience by the centre head/research administration before the procession begins.
2. Introduction by the chair of the public defence
3. Doctoral candidate: 15–20 min. presentation
4. First opponent: 45-60 min. timeframe
5. Break
6. Ex auditorio (if applicable): This means that if someone present wants to ask the doctoral candidate questions about the thesis, they are given the opportunity to do so. Such parties need to notify the chair of the public defence of their intention to ask questions during the break.
7. Second opponent: 45-60 min. timeframe
8. The doctoral candidate takes the floor to thank the opponents and attendees for the public defence (the supervisor and institution can be thanked later, at the reception/dinner).

9. The chair of the public defence concludes the proceedings and gives details of where the result will be published.
10. The assessment committee withdraws to deliberate.
11. The result is announced.

The candidate chooses whether to hold a reception or doctoral dinner, and it is a private event. The doctoral dinner is usually arranged the same afternoon as the defence is held. However, it is up to the candidate to decide whether to organise a dinner.

You must cover the costs for the dinner yourself. Any doctoral dinner after the defence is a private event organised by the candidate. VID has no expectations as to that a doctoral dinner will be held or that the opponents, committee chair or defence chair will be invited to this dinner.

Doctoral candidates are conferred by the board of VID at the first board meeting following the public defence. If you do not have access to vitenmålsportalen.no, the diploma supplement will be sent to you by regular mail afterwards.

VID hosts an annual doctor promotion. If you are unable to attend, your diploma will be sent to you.

After the public defence, a news article will be published om VID.no about your research. The news article is based om the information you provided on your "Press release form".