During your doctoral studies

The aim of supervision plan is to decide on the practicalities of the supervision. It should be a continuously updated document. The supervision plan explains the responsibilities of the supervising professor, thesis advisor(s) and of the doctoral student during the supervision process.

Supervision plan is part of the Doctoral personal study plan. The plan is valid until the scheduled time of graduation. The target time for a full-time student is four years, for a part time student eight years. It must be updated if changes occur in the supervision, for instance if the supervising professor or thesis advisor changes, or if update is requested by one of the parties involved. If the supervising professor is unable to supervise the doctoral student until graduation (e.g. if the supervising professor retires, or has a terminable contract), a successor needs to be nominated.

If you have any questions regarding the supervision responsibilities, you should primarily contact your supervising professor. If necessary, you can also contact the Doctoral education services.

Supervision plan template is available at

Doctoral student forms (aalto.fi)

When starting doctoral studies, the doctoral student commits to long-term goal-oriented study and research. The doctoral student has a right to study in accordance with the doctoral personal study plan and to receive knowledgeable guidance in his/her studies on a regular basis. In return for such guidance, the doctoral student commits to studying in accordance with the doctoral personal study plan. In addition, the doctoral student commits to acting in compliance with the guidelines of the National Advisory Board on Research Ethics on good scientific practice. Please discuss also Agreeing on authorship.

The responsibilities of the doctoral student are:

• preparing, in collaboration with the supervising professor, a doctoral personal study plan which includes 1) Credit plan (done in two systems, first in Sisu, then in MyStudies); 2) research plan; 3) supervision plan; 4) funding plan and 5) career plan for doctoral studies at the start of the doctoral studies and updating it as necessary (done in MyStudies)
• negotiating with the supervising professor on the choice of research topic and preparing a thorough research proposal under the supervision of the supervising professor; giving an account of the objectives, contents, methods and schedule of the research
• familiarising him/herself with the ethical principles of scientific research and acting in compliance with good scientific practice in his/her research
• carrying out research independently and in a self-directed manner in accordance with the research proposal and within the limits of the research project
• actively publishing results in the publication fora of the field
• providing teaching related to the research field and communicating the results of his/her research to others
• aiming at, together with the supervising professor, securing funding for the doctoral studies
• reporting on the progress of the research to the supervising professor on a regular basis
• notifying the supervising professor of any changes necessary to the doctoral personal study plan, or of any problems with following the plan
• annually enrolling at the university

The supervising professor is in charge of the supervision arrangements for the doctoral student. The supervising professor is obligated to supervise those doctoral students who have enrolled as attending students, who have progressed in their studies according to their doctoral personal study plans, and who report on the progress of their studies on a regular basis. The supervising professor may either propose to assign some of the duties mentioned below to the thesis advisor(s) or also propose to act as the thesis advisor him/herself. What is said below of the duties of the supervising professor shall apply, as appropriate, also to the thesis advisor(s), where compliant with the division of responsibilities specified in the agreement.

The supervising professor is responsible for the supervision of the doctoral student and supports the implementation of the funding plan. The supervising professor provides guidance in the execution of the research and instructs the doctoral student in critical and independent thinking in research and artistic activities. The supervising professor encourages the doctoral student to actively publish his/her research results in the publication fora of the field of research/art in question, and guides him/her in publication writing. The supervising professor supports and encourages the doctoral student. The supervising professor is also responsible for ensuring that full-time doctoral students are not burdened excessively with duties other than doctoral research work. Participation in teaching is, however, part of doctoral education and as such obligatory for the doctoral student (max 5%).

The supervising professor goes through and approves the doctoral personal study plan of the doctoral student. In addition, the supervising professor follows up on the progress of the studies and that of the research work on a regular basis: the supervising professor and the student discuss the progress of the studies on a regular basis, and the doctoral personal study plan is updated accordingly as necessary. At minimum, the plan is checked once a year. This follow-up requirement concerns full-time and part-time doctoral students in doctoral programmes.

The supervising professor is responsible for ensuring that the doctoral student is aware of good scientific practice and the ethical principles followed in his/her field of research as well as of the regulations concerning immaterial property rights, and monitors that the student adheres to such principles. To this end, the supervising professor and the doctoral student have a discussion at the start of their supervision relationship in order to look into the questions of research ethics and related practices relevant to the work of the student.

The supervising professor is responsible for ensuring that the doctoral student is aware of the requirements for a doctoral thesis and of the stages included in the preliminary examination and the public examination of the thesis. When the manuscript of the doctoral thesis is complete, it may only be submitted for preliminary examination after the supervising professor has issued a statement confirming that the manuscript is ready for preliminary examination. The supervising professor makes sure that the doctoral student makes the necessary corrections proposed to the doctoral thesis manuscript by the preliminary examiner(s). The preliminary examination can only start when course requirements are fulfilled.

The supervising professor assists the doctoral student in career planning, and ensures that the doctoral studies and research process equip the doctoral student with not only research skills but also transferable skills.

Who can act as supervising professor?

"An Aalto University professor whom an Aalto school has appointed to hold overall responsibility for the degree of the doctoral student and the related supervision arrangements as well as for preparing the supervision plan with the doctoral student. The supervising professor may also act as the thesis advisor." (DRDE Item 1).

A supervising professor must represent the research field (BIZ: major) of the doctoral student and is appointed by the Doctoral Programme Committee of the School. A supervising professor must be a tenure-track professor of the school, though for special reasons, the dean of the School can decide that a non-tenure track professor with a doctor's degree may act as a supervising professor. A retired professor (e.g. Emeritus or Senior Advisor) cannot be appointed as supervising professor.

Who can act as thesis advisor?
A thesis advisor must hold a doctoral degree. However, in ARTS, it is possible to appoint a second thesis advisor, who does not hold a doctor’s degree, based on artistic merit or competence in the area of research.

A co-supervisor may be assigned in exceptional cases because of multidisciplinarity of the doctoral thesis (when also the result of the education, i.e. the degree, can be divided) or in internationally jointly supervised doctoral theses (based on cotutelle agreement).

The co-supervisor shares with the supervising professor the overall responsibility for the degree of the doctoral student and for the related supervision arrangements.

The proposal must be made as early in the studies as possible (preferably with the application for doctoral studies).

In such case, it is the responsibility of the supervising professor and the co-supervisor to draft a joint proposal for dividing the degree between the schools and show evidence of collaboration. The freely formulated signed proposal and the supervision plan is sent to the doctoral programme of the school of the doctoral student. The Dean of the school of the doctoral students decides about the division of the degree.

The doctoral student carries out the doctoral studies according to the process of his/her school and the degree will be awarded to the doctoral student only from his/her own school.

Only the name of the school of the doctoral student is mentioned on the doctoral thesis cover, but on the reverse of the title page the name of the co-supervisor should be mentioned. The collaboration of the two schools can be mentioned e.g. in the preface or in the introduction part of the doctoral thesis.

If your collaboration with your supervising professor does not work, you can always contact the Doctoral education services of your programme and discuss how to proceed. Here are a few choices:

• Discuss with your supervising professor about it
• Ask if you could get an additional thesis advisor (e.g. if your professor is too busy).
• Discuss with the Head of the doctoral programme
• Discuss with HR at your department  (if employed) or the Head of the department
• If you need a second opinion of something related to supervision, you can ask for a confidential “second opinion” from our ombudspersons. Check Ombudsperson for doctoral students | Aalto University
• If the problem is severe and the code of conduct (Code of Conduct) was not followed, first check Aalto University's instructions related to Preventing harassment and inappropriate conduct | Aalto University.

In challenging situations you can turn to Support for challenges during your doctoral studies.

The purpose of using Turnitin for draft versions of the thesis, is to improve the scientific writing of the doctoral student and to prevent unpleasant surprises later in the process.

The doctoral student submits a draft version of the thesis in a "Draft" activity in MyCourses. The supervising professor can utilize the Turnitin report for assessing the draft. At the same time she/he can also give feedback to the doctoral student with the Turnitin feedback tools or with some other preferred tool.

The doctoral student revises the draft with help of the Turnitin report and the feedback from the supervising professor. It is also possible to get a Turnitin similarity report on your draft on your own, see Turnitin instructions for independent usage.

The purpose of using Turnitin on the final version of the thesis manuscript to be sent for pre-examination is to check that the thesis sent to the pre-examiners doesn’t contain plagiarism.

The doctoral student submits the final version of the thesis for pre-examination in the pre-examination activity in MyCourses.

The supervising professor interprets the Turnitin similarity report at the same time as she/he assesses other aspects of the content.

• If the interpretation of the Turnitin report indicates plagiarism, a procedure of handling plagiarism is started (this unfortunate step is unlikely if Turnitin has been used with the drafts version)
• The pre-examiners can be informed that the thesis has been checked for plagiarism.

The purpose of Turnitin usage for the final version of a thesis is twofold:

• to make sure again that there is no plagiarism in the final version (if the previous steps are done with Turnitin this is highly unlikely and barely needed).
• to secure that the thesis is protected against plagiarism by others in future. Technically, the aim is to make sure that the final version of the thesis will be indexed in the Turnitin repositories one way or another:
  • a thesis published in Aaltodoc will automatically be indexed into the Turnitin repositories (most cases).
  • if the thesis is not published in the Aaltodoc (e.g. in cotutelle cases) the doctoral student should submit the final published version of the thesis in the "Version for grading" activity in MyCourses. In this activity the submission is archived in Turnitin student papers repository.

Mobility is usually financed by external funding: scholarships and grants, as part of a project or an individual fellowship. The funding for long distance destinations must be organized independently. While applying, besides the most obvious organisations, try to find out information of all possible foundations, both national and international. The target country may equally have some scholarships worthwhile applying for.

If you apply within Erasmus+ or Erasmus Global Mobility programme, you are entitled for Erasmus scholarship from Aalto University, which is dictated by the destination and the length of the stay.

Check out the application deadlines for funding well in advance.

What: Visits to universities, research institutes, organisations and industries.

Where to go: Discuss with your supervising professor and/or your advisor(s) about the suitable places for you as they know your research field and should be able to recommend the best option for you. Research visits are not tied to agreements between the universities.

When: There is no definite rule at which stage of a research you should go: it depends on your research and objectives concerning the visit. You agree the timing of your visit period with your supervising professor and the host university.

For how long: The length of the research visit can be anything from one week to several months.

How: Each university has its own system for receiving long-term visitors. Check out their websites and be in contact with their international office and the professors in your field to ask what is the procedure for a research visit. Note that some universities arrange application periods for visiting researchers or scholars.

Important to note: When you go abroad as part of your doctoral education, you need to enroll as an attending student to Aalto University.

What: Course-based studies at partner university of Aalto University, or in some cases, some other university (so called freemover exchange). Usually exchange studies involve both taking courses and advancing your research work.

Where to go? Check from Aalto University's destination database which Aalto's partner universities accept doctoral students. Discuss with your supervising professor and/or your advisor(s) about the suitable places for you. Based on these discussions you may also agree about an exchange to a university that is not partner of Aalto University.

ARTS Destination DatabaseBIZ Destination DatabaseCHEM, ELEC, ENG, SCI Destination Database
When? Exchange periods follow the academic calendar of the host university so the exchange begins usually in the beginning of the academic term/year and ends at the end of the academic term/year.

For how long: The duration of the exchange is from 3 months to 12 months.

How? If you apply within an exchange programme, please check the application periods and instructions.

Important to note: When you go abroad as part of your doctoral education, you need to enroll as an attending student to Aalto University.

For more information: Please contact the Erasmus contact person at your own school.  

Taking part in international conferences is also one way of including international elements to your doctoral studies and research and a good opportunity to network internationally. Conferences are excellent opportunities to present your research for the international research community and experts around the world and to map possible future post doc places. Feedback received from your presentation or poster will help to improve and proceed your research work and you get to strengthen your presentation skills. To get the most out of the conferences, make both a plan of your aims concerning the each conference participation and a list of those people you are interested in meeting.

If you plan to get credits from a conference presentation, please check the section "Sisu credit plan - individual studies (custom course credit)" under Doctoral Personal Study Plan (DSPS) (aalto.fi).

If it not possible to go abroad for a longer period during your doctoral studies, short-term international summer and winter schools lasting for one or two weeks are perfect options to network, to get international dimension to your studies and to delve into some specific topic. Even a short period spent abroad discussing with international colleagues can open interesting new viewpoints for deeper understanding of your research field and development of your research.

ARTS doctoral students: In these and other short term exchanges you can apply for ARTS Grant for Short Term Exchanges

Note that you can include studies from other universities in your degree, and you should agree about it with your supervising professor in your Sisu credit plan beforehand. However, credit transfer is only possible if you have received study credits from another university, displayed on a transcript. If you have not received official credits (often in the case of summer schools or seminars), include the studies as individual studies, see more at the section  "Sisu credit plan - individual studies (custom course credit)" under Doctoral Personal Study Plan (DSPS) (aalto.fi). Doctoral personal study plan (DPSP), under Sisu credit plan - individual studies (custom course credit).

Doctoral student in the field of ICT may apply to EIT Digital in which it is possible to do a six months’ researcher exchange. EIT Digital Innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) program for doctoral students in the field of ICT gives knowledge and competences to start new businesses and to launch new products and services. The program is composed of four intensive courses, six months’ researcher exchange and six months’ business development experience. All doctoral students accepted to Aalto University that are in the starting phase of their studies can apply. Please contact your supervising professor to enquire if the courses could be part of your doctoral studies. More information from the Doctoral Training Center Helsinki  -webpage and local program representatives.

A licentiate thesis shall demonstrate good conversance with the field of research and the capability of independently and critically applying scientific research methods.

• A single study, i.e. a monograph
• A number of scientific publications or manuscripts vetted for publication deemed sufficient by the university which deal with the same set of problems and a summary of the findings. The licentiate thesis may consist of joint publications if the author’s independent contribution can be shown.
• Some other work which meets corresponding scientific criteria

The research topic of the licentiate thesis is related to the research field of the doctoral student and has been agreed with the supervising professor before starting the thesis.

When the thesis is ready for examination the student requests for confirmation of licentiate thesis topic, language, supervisor, thesis advisor and examiner and examination of licentiate thesis

The application includes the following:

1. Request for examination of licentiate thesis (form 303, see below)
2. Title page of licentiate thesis
3. Abstract of the thesis in English*
4. A list of publications included in the thesis and author’s contribution (in case of article licentiate thesis)
5. Final version of the thesis in a PDF format
6. Short CV and publication list of the examiner

*The licentiate thesis shall include one or two abstracts: one abstract in English and another one in Finnish or Swedish if the author has received his/her high school education in Finland.

Send the application to your School's Doctoral education services.

The licentiate thesis is examined by an independent examiner (CHEM: two examiners). The examiner cannot be from the Aalto University. The examiner must hold at least a licentiate's degree, and they are to present their own, independent evaluation of the thesis. The examiner cannot have a too close relation to the author of the thesis, supervising professor or thesis advisor, so that there will be no doubts of partiality.

The student shall not take part in selecting the examiners; however they have a chance to make a remark on the selection. Before the examiner is appointed, the supervising professor must confirm that they agree to do the examination according to the schedule.

After processing the application and upon its approval by the Doctoral Programme Committee, the Doctoral Programme sends the licentiate thesis manuscript to the examiner(s). The examiner is asked to give their statement within six weeks.

When the examiner's statement arrives, the Doctoral Programme sends the statement to the doctoral student and supervising professor. The doctoral student has up to one year to make the necessary corrections.

The doctoral student sends the corrected licentiate thesis and the clarification of the corrections to the supervising professor, who checks the corrections that have been made.

After the supervising professor has accepted the clarification and the corrected thesis, they will send a short statement of this to the Doctoral Programme. In the statement the supervising professor states that the necessary corrections have been made and that the thesis is ready to be published. If the examiner does not suggest any corrections, the supervising professor will state in the statement that the thesis is ready to be published.

The licentiate thesis is presented at the department. After the presentation the supervising professor sends a freely formulated email to the Doctoral Programme with confirmation of the presentation.

Licentiate theses are published electronically at Aaltodoc. Electronic long-term preservation and open access publishing of licentiate theses is taken care of using an electronic form. The licentiate thesis is a public document; however, in the electronic form you can decide on the degree of publicity of your full-text thesis (PDF/A file) when depositing the file in the archive. You can find more information (incl. what degree of publicity means, how and where the thesis is deposited etc.) on the electronic form.

Learning Centre will publish your thesis at Aaltodoc and helps you with all the necessary permissions needed for electronic publishing.

You can use the Aalto doctoral thesis templates in the contents section of your licentiate thesis, but please note that Aalto Publication Platform should not be used for the licentiate thesis. Cover of the licentiate thesis should be similar to theses published at Aaltodoc.

Approval of licentiate thesis can be applied for from the Doctoral Programme Committee (contact the Doctoral Services of your School) after the licentiate thesis has been published electronically at Aaltodoc. Please check the deadlines for applications from the page of your own doctoral programme.

The Doctoral Programme Committee decides on the approval of the licentiate thesis. The Committee shall evaluate the licentiate thesis based on the written statement of the examiner and other possible written statements, comments or official replies. Grades used when evaluating the licentiate thesis are pass and fail. For the Licentiate of Science (Architecture) the grades for evaluating the thesis are pass with distinction, pass and fail.

After the licentiate thesis has been approved at the Doctoral Programme Committee and the student has applied for graduation in Sisu, the Dean will award the degree if all the required studies have been completed and doctoral student has enrolled as present at the university. The licentiate degree diploma entitles to the title of

• Licentiate of Science in Architecture (TkL, Lic.Sc.(Arch))
• Licentiate of Science in Economics and Business Administration (TkL, Lic.Sc.(Econ.))
• Licentiate of Science in Technology (TkL, Lic.Sc.(Tech.))

Submit the graduation request through your study plan on Sisu. Your graduation request on Sisu should be based on your up-to-date primary study plan towards a licentiate degree. Please note that you must be enrolled as an attending student on your graduation day.  

Look at instructions how to request for graduation 

Graduation request must be filled at once, it is not possible to stop, save and continue later on.  After sending the graduation request you can cancel your request for graduation, edit it or resubmit it if you need to. You can cancel or edit your request for graduation while its status is requested. If the status is in progress, you cannot cancel the request.

Studies after licentiate degree

Normally postgraduate studies are not continued after completing a licentiate degree - if you plan to study towards a doctoral degree, you are not required to complete a licentiate degree in between. However, if after completing a licentiate degree your plans change and you would wish to continue to study towards a doctoral degree, first discuss with your supervising professor about your plans. You don't need to submit a separate application, but you need to remember to keep enrolling to the university in order to not lose your study right.

After licentiate degree, you are very welcome to keep your skills and knowledgre up-to-date with Aalto University Lifewide Learning at lifewidelearning.aalto.fi.