Doctoral Programme in Biology, Geography and Geology - Admission Criteria and Instructions for Applicants

• Make sure you are eligible to apply
• Contact your potential supervisors and make a supervision plan with them
  • Research and Personnel in Biology department
  • Research and Personnel in Geography and Geology department
  • Research and Personnel in Biodiversity unit
  • Alternatively, you can fill the BGG expression of interest form to find a supervisor. Link to the BGG expression of interest form.
• Supervision plan must include a principal supervisor, who has an employment contract to the University of Turku, another supervisor and possible other supervisors. In an exceptional case, the principal supervisor can be a person who does not have an employment contract to the University of Turku. In this case, the principal supervisors has to be a docent of the University of Turku and there has to be another supervisor appointed who has an employment contract to the University of Turku. The principal supervisor should always be at least a docent and the other supervisors should hold a doctoral degree. A research director is a professor of the field, who has an employment concract to the Univeristy of Turku. In an exceptional case, if there is no professor available, the associate professor can be nominated as a research director.
• Prepare a funding plan as a right to study does not include funding or scholarship from the University. In September call, in addition to a right to study, you can also apply for a BGG fixed-term funded doctoral candidate position for a maximum of four years. 
• Read "BGG Call for Applications" document carefully. Prepare all the required application attachments according to the instructions.
• Prepare your degree certificates for the application and require officially certified copies with English translation, if needed.
• If you are applying the right to study a doctoral degree and if you need to verify your language skills with a language test, make sure that you book your test time well in advance. Link to www page describing when a language test is not required.

• Read "BGG call for applications" document before filling in the electronic application form in My Studyinfo service. 
• Make sure you have attached all the required documents.

Please, familiarize yourself with the "BGG Call for Applications" document for the details of the attachments.

The University of Turku follows the Rector’s decision (15 Aug 2019) on the means of verifying one’s language proficiency. You must carefully study the instructions on language requirements of the University of Turku (see link below). Please, note that you must reach the minimum required test results to be considered eligible to the University of Turku. No exceptions to Rector’s decision will be made. The language test result is a mandatory attachment of the right to study application, if not otherwise stated in the University of Turku graduate school web page. If you are required to prove your language proficiency with a language test, a scanned certificate of a completed language test must be attached to the application.

    Link to Language requirements for admission / Right to study for a doctoral degree

• Prepare to deliver your original or originally certified degree certificates to the University of Turku if you are granted the right to study a doctoral degree