The Acceptance Process of the Doctoral Theses at Turku School of Economics

Have you completed all the required studies? Check from the Study Guide the degree structure and requirements. When asking to confirm the preliminary examiners, only 10% (= 6 ECTS) of studies can be unfinished. When applying for a right to defend the thesis, all studies must be completed and registered to Nettiopsu. You can ask the coordinator to check your studies. The coordinator can put together the modules (major studies, general postgraduate studies and elective studies) according to your wishes. 

The doctoral candidate is responsible for proofreading the dissertation and its layout. Pay special attention to meeting the requirements on layout and form of the dissertation at the University of Turku Annales series: https://utuguides.fi/c.php?g=657189&p=4624107. Notice that the abstracts must be included in the dissertation both in Finnish AND in English. When sending the manuscript to the preliminary examination, it suffices that you have included an abstract in the language that your preliminary examiners are able to understand it. The other abstract and the acknowledgements can be added later.

If necessary, collect permissions from the publishers to republish your thesis articles. Generally, publishers' websites contain instructions on how to request a permission to republish. Assistance is available from the library services: julkaisut@utu.fi

The supervisors make sure that the manuscript is ready for preliminary examination, and they are responsible for the Turnitin originality check (your supervisor should have a Moodle platform for this purpose, and the doctoral candidate can submit the thesis manuscript there). Do not make any changes to the manuscript after the Turniting check (you can make changes after you receive the preliminary examination statements). More information on the Turnitin and for example how to order a Turnitin platform is available from the FairUTU webpages. The supervisor attaches a signed Turnitin certificate to the electronic form for making a proposal for pre-examiners OR sends it by internal mail pr as a scanned copy to the coordinator.

The doctoral candidate and the supervisors will discuss beforehand about the possible preliminary examiners. There cannot be any conflict of interests etc.

The doctoral candidate submits the thesis to the preliminary examination process with the required attachments. Please, use the electronic form: Send in your thesis manuscript and attachments.

If your thesis manuscript and the possible articles your thesis contains do not fit in the attachment field of the form, compile them into one PDF file and send it to tohtorikoulutus@utu.fi.

If the thesis is a compilation thesis, the articles/essays may be co-authored if the candidate’s own significant contribution to the article can be shown. This needs to be evidenced in a separate statement undersigned by the co-author(s). Attach the statement to the electronic form.

When the doctoral candidate has delivered the manuscript and possible attachements, a professor in the major subject can make a proposal for pre-examiners by using an e-form. The proposal must arrive at least 8 days before the meeting of the Steering Committee of TSE's Doctoral Programme (ToJo). You can find the meeting dates from intranet.

At this point only preliminary examiners are to be proposed; the opponent and the grading committee members are proposed when two positive statements have arrived and it is time to apply for the right to defend the thesis.

• The link to the form for TSE (professor of the major subject delivers the proposal)
• Please note that the CV and list of publications of the preliminary examiners must have been updated recently. You must always justify the selection of the examiners, and the examiners must have accepted to act as preliminary examiners before sending this form!
• Attach the Turnitin certificate to the form (or send it to the coordinator by internal post or as a scanned copy by email; it can come later than the proposal as long as it arrives before the ToJo meeting), more information from the FairUTU webpages: https://www.utu.fi/en/fairutu

When the form is completed by the professor of the major subject, it will be sent by email to the Doctoral Candidate who must approve or reject the proposal - so check your utu-mail regularly! The professor is able to edit the proposal if necessary, by returning to the form and by clicking the orange button in the upper right corner: "Copy information to a new form".

The secretary of the Steering Committee adds the appointment of the preliminary examiners to the agenda of the next meeting. After hearing the Steering Committee of the Doctoral Programme, the Director of the Doctoral Programme appoints the preliminary examiners. A copy of the decision is delivered also to the doctoral candidate and the supervisors.

Two persons external to the University can be appointed as preliminary examiners. In exceptional cases, the second pre-examiner may come from another faculty of the University of Turku, but the opponent must come outside of the University of Turku. Both of the preliminary examiners must have a doctoral degree and one of them must also have, at the minimum, the title of docent or other equivalent competence. The opponent must have, at the minimum, the title of docent or other equivalent competence. The preliminary examiner/opponent cannot be disqualified or have a controversial relationship to the dissertation research - for example they must not have co-authored publications together with the author of the doctoral thesis, they must come from outside the University of Turku and they must not have close and recent (as the main rule, from the past three years) scientific collaboration with the supervisor(s). The grounds for disqualification are laid out in Section 28 of the Administrative Procedure Act. In addition, issues pertaining to equality and potential future collaboration should be taken into consideration. The proposal is handled in the steering committee of the Doctoral Programme. In addition to the above-mentioned minimum requirements, the persons' scientific merits and suitability for the proposed position will be taken into consideration when deciding on the matter.

The preliminary examiners provide a substantiated, written statement evaluating the dissertation within two months from receiving the manuscript. The statements are delivered to the secretary of the Committee, and then forwarded also to the doctoral candidate and the supervisor/s by the secretary.

When two positive statements have arrived, the professor in the major subject makes the proposal for Opponent, Custos and the Grading Committee by using an e-form:

• TSE's form for proposing the Opponent, Custos and Grading Committee: the professor in the major subject delivers the form.
• The Grading Committee shall include the preliminary examiners, the opponent and the supervisor(s), 3-6 members.
• Please justify the selection of the opponent if (s)he was not a prelininary examiner
• Please justify the reasons for selecting the custos, if the suggested custos is other than professor

After the professor has made the proposal, the form is sent to the utu-email of the doctoral candidate who must either approve or reject the proposal. The professor may, if necessary, edit the proposal by returning to the form and by clicking to the orange button "Copy information to a new form". The accepted proposal must arrive to the coordinator at least 8 days before ToJo's meeting.

The Doctoral Candidate shall submit to the coordinator a written response on the changes made to the dissertation based on the preliminary examination to the secretary of the Committee. One month prior the defense, the doctoral candidate delivers the final manuscript and the written response to the coordinator, either by email or by sending a new message from UGIS system (select Official as the recipient). The coordinator will send these together with the instructions to the opponent and the grading committee.

More information on the publication of the doctoral thesis can be found here.

The Doctoral Candidate is reposible for the arrangements of the public examination. You may contact Ilona Karkulehto (ilona.karkulehto@utu.fi) concerning the practical arrangements of the defense, such as reserving a lecture hall etc. The Doctoral Candidate must make a defence announcement as soon as the permission to defend the thesis has been granted. Please see instructions here: https://www.utu.fi/en/research/dissertations/guidelines

TSE's own instructions concerning the whole acceptance process of the doctoral dissertation:

After the public examination, the Grading Committee will discuss the grade (if the preliminary examiners are appointed after 1 August, 2016). The supervisor (member of the Grading Committee) is responsible for organising the discussion. After the public examination, the opponent(s) appointed by the Director of the Doctoral Programme has/have two weeks to deliver a written statement(s) including a substantiated evaluation of the scientific value of the final doctoral dissertation and whether it serves its purpose. The statement is addressed to the Council of Turku School of Economics. The Grading Committee shall be notified of the grade suggested in the opponent's final statement by the secretary of the Steering Committee of the Doctoral Programme. As a member of the Grading Committee, the preliminary examiner(s) must as soon possible respond to the notification and inform whether they agree/disagree with the grade. In the case the preliminary examiner(s) disagrees,they shall have 14 days from the date of being notified of the grade suggested by the opponent(s) to deliver a written statement on their opinion to the Council of Turku School of Economics.

A diploma will be issued automatically once the Steering Committee has accepted the dissertation. The date of graduating is the date of the decision about the acceptance (a separate application for a diploma is not needed).

The diploma can be collected at the university (Office for Academic and Student Affairs). If requested, the diploma can be mailed to the address in the disputant's study register.

The doctoral candidate enters their doctoral dissertation and possible other publications and information to the Publication Information System Converis.