FAQ's - Questions about the membership

We would like to point out to doctoral candidates and prospective doctoral candidates at an early stage with the information on the composition of their Supervisory Committee that the GSH unfortunately cannot finance travel and hotel costs for external supervisors; i.e. travel by examiners for participation in the oral exam must also be paid for from other sources; we recommend that you or the candidate contact the primary supervisor for this purpose.

There are a whole range of "Added Value" factors that benefit you as a member of the GSH and which you can use optionally according to your wishes:

• the joint supervision of your doctoral candidates by two other supervisors will reduce your supervisory workload. As the primary supervisor, you will nevertheless be credited for the entire supervision effort in the university's internal allocation of funds; your respective supervision efforts as a co-supervisor in other Supervisory Committee will balance each other out in the long term;
• the interdisciplinary and cross-faculty class structure opens up new opportunities to realise cooperative third-party funded research projects, which might be less likely within the traditional faculty structures;
• the GSH generally seeks and intensively promotes cooperation between its members; we support lecture series, specialist symposia, meetings of working groups of our members and doctoral candidates, etc.;
• the interdisciplinary nature of the GSH also promotes the possibility of facilitating thematically broad-based doctorates. Thanks to an interdisciplinary team of supervisors, different aspects of the work can be competently supervised;
• the Office is involved in the "Qualitätszirkel Promotion", a network of various Graduate Centres spanning several Bundesländer. In 2010, the network published the 1st edition of their handbook "Gemeinsam die Promotion Gestalten" /'Shaping the Doctorate Together') for supervisors and doctoral candidates alike, and in 2019 we published the handbook "Promotion - bewußt entscheiden und gut starten" Your Doctorate - making conscious Decisions and Getting off to a Good Start) . Since 2012, the network has offered an annual joint workshop exclusively for GSH members, which is still unique and specially designed for early career supervisors.

The prerequisite is that you can participate in one of our Classes with your research area and are currently a member of the University of Würzburg.

Membership can be applied for at any time and informally by email to the Office, it initially lasts four years and can be extended informally. All you have to do is inform us of your desired membership and which class or classes you would like to participate in (multiple membership in different Classes is also possible).

As a member of the Graduate School

• you represent the goals of the GSH with your structured doctorate to the outside world;
• you declare your willingness to supervise your own doctoral candidates in the GSH if possible,
• participate in the Supervisory Committees of other doctoral candidates and
• to actively utilise the interdisciplinary structure of the GSH as a research platform for new collaborative projects.

When you join the GSH, you will receive a welcome letter from the Office with further information and are welcome to contact the Managing Director with any questions you may have.

Further information.

Question: I would like to supervise my doctoral candidates within the framework of the GSH and obtain a doctorate; what requirements do I need to fulfil?

When putting together a Supervisory Committee, the question also arises as to who can take on the supervision of the doctoral candidate, the assessment of the dissertation and ultimately also the doctoral examination, i.e. ultimately who is allowed to supervise and examin a doctoral candidate. Two basic criteria apply to doctorates at our Graduate School:

1. The corresponding primary supervisor must generally be or become a member of the GSH before the doctoral candidate is admitted; one of the two co-supervisors can be external, i.e. from outside the GSH but at the University of Würzburg or from another university, and
2. a doctoral examination authorisation acc. of the Bayer. Hochschulprüferverordnung;
3. all current members of the GSH have this authorisation. If a doctoral candidate wishes to have a person as supervisor who is not yet a member but would like to join the GSH to take over the supervision, he or she fulfils the above criteria if he or she belongs to the groups of persons mentioned below; in this case, he or she could also participate in a Supervisory Committee as the primarysupervisor .

A doctoral examination authorisation acc. Bayer. Hochschulprüferverordnung:

• Active and retired professors;
• Private lecturers (Privatdozenten und Privatdozentinnen)
• by way of exception in individual cases, academic staff including Akademische Räte. If a person from this group has been accepted as a habilitation candidate or has not (yet) been accepted as a habilitation candidate, he/she can apply for authorisation to do a doctorate, on which the Director decides individually.

• Such an informal application must be submitted to the Director of the GSH via the GSH office; the following contents must be enclosed with the application:
• proof that the person is working full-time;
• a confirmation issued by the Dean of the relevant Faculty that the person has been entrusted with the independent performance of tasks in research and teaching;
• proof that he/she has taught the examination subject independently for at least one year at a university;
• proof that he/she has been accepted as a habilitation candidate;
• or, if he/she has not yet been accepted as a Habilitand or Habilitandin, a good reason for a possible waiver of acceptance as a Habilitand/Habilitandin by the GSH;
• for persons working part-time: additional separate justification of the special qualification and exceptional eligibility.

For Early Career Researchers Group Leaders (Nachwuchsgruppenleiter/-leiterinnen) who have (demonstrably) acquired the funding for the projects in which they lead a junior research group themselves, they are generally able to supervise and examine the doctoral candidates in their junior research group. In addition, there is nothing to prevent the relevant chair holder, at which the junior research group leader works, from participating in a Supervisory Committee as a co-supervisor (resolution of the GSH Board of Directors of 12 January 2016).

Sources:

• Bayer. Hochschulprüferverordnung - HSchPrüferV, §§ 2 und 4.
• Bayer. Hochschulinnovationsgesetz - BayHIG, Art 19.