Supervision Agreement

Possible supervisors of the dissertation project may be:

• Professors
• private lecturers ("Privatdozent:innen")
• junior research group leaders ("Nachwuchsgruppenleiter:innen"), if their scientific qualification has been confirmed by an external evaluation procedure.

One of your supervisors must be a member of the faculty at which you are about to carry out your project. Exceptions are possible, however, only when the faculty's council grants its approval.

• name of the doctoral candidate
• working title of the dissertation project
• name of at least one supervisor
• a statement from the supervisor(s) agreeing to receive progress reports on the ongoing project from the doctoral candidate on a regular basis
• a statement from the doctoral candidate agreeing to provide progress reports for the supervisor(s) on a regular basis
• planned type of dissertation project (cumulative/monograph)
• if applicable: information about cooperation with other research institutions (e.g. universities of applied sciences, non-university research institutes, industry)
• if applicable: participation in a doctoral programme (e.g. Graduate School, Research Training Group)

• additional information on the dissertation project, e.g. if it will be written in English
• project plan
• other rights and responsibilities of the doctoral candidate, e.g. teaching, participation in qualification programmes or faculty's events
• other rights and responsibilities of the supervisor(s)
• regulations on working conditions (workplace, Internet access, laboratory access, and other resources)

The Graduate Academy offers a sample agreement based on the guidelines of DFGpdf, 41 kb · de (in German):

GA Sample Supervision Agreementdocx, 56 kb · de

Most faculties offer sample agreements as guidelines on their websites:

• Faculty of Theologydocx, 59 kb · de (in German)
• Faculty of Lawpdf, 258 kb · de (in German)
• Faculty of Economicspdf, 134 kb
• Faculty of Artspdf, 140 kb · de
• Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciencesdocx, 106 kb
• Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Sciencedocx, 57 kb · de
• Faculty of Physics and Astronomydocx, 17 kb · de
• Faculty of Chemistry and Earth Sciencespdf, 170 kb · de
• Faculty of Biological Sciencespdf, 386 kb
• Faculty of MedicineExternal link