See your School's contact information in case you have any questions about the instructions on this page. Please use this address also for sending your thesis manuscript by Funet FileSender, if it is too large to include in the Webropol form.

ARTS
Contact us: doctoral-arts@aalto.fi 
ARTS key dates

BIZ
Contact us: doctoralprogramme-biz@aalto.fi
BIZ key dates

CHEM
Contact us: sirje.liukko@aalto.fi 
CHEM key dates

ELEC
Contact us: emma.holmlund@aalto.fi
ELEC key dates

ENG
Contact us: ritva.viero@aalto.fi 
ENG key dates

SCI
Contact us: suvipilvi.kotipelto@aalto.fi & doctoral-sci-elec@aalto.fi 
SCI key dates

Pre-examiners have 1,5 months to give their statements. 

Changes and corrections

• The pre-examiners' statements may contain suggestions for corrections and improvements.
• If changes are made to the manuscript after pre-examination, doctoral student needs to send a detailed list of corrections to the Secretary of the Committee. The purpose of the list of corrections is to respond to the possible corrections and/or suggestions presented by the pre-examiners in their statements.
• Refer to the page numbers of the manuscript to which the corrections have been made, or indicate the changed paragraphs/sections in some other way, so that the members of the Committee have the possibility to check the changes.

Minor or substantial corrections

• If the required changes or corrections are minor, the supervising professor is responsible for ensuring that the doctoral student makes the required corrections and changes. Minor changes may include the need for additional material acquired with moderate effort or the need for further inclusion of research literature.
• If the changes or corrections required by either of the pre-examiners are substantial, a second round of pre-examination is arranged after the doctoral student has made the required corrections and changes. Substantial changes and corrections may, in addition to those mentioned above, include revisions of research design and the development of the argument.
• In this second pre-examination round, the manuscript can be examined either by one or both pre-examiners, depending on the statements in the first round. If a pre-examiner is proposing substantial revisions and is willing to pre-examine a revised version of the manuscript, it can be sent to this pre-examiner without a decision by the Doctoral Programme Committee. In this case, the supervising professor must agree that the revised version is ready, and it will be sent to the pre-examiners by the Secretary of the Committee. If new pre-examiners need to be appointed, the Doctoral Programme Committee decides how the second pre-examination round will be arranged, based on the proposal of supervising professor.
• The second pre-examination round can usually be arranged at the earliest 3 months after the first round and at the latest 12 months after it. If the doctoral student needs more than 12 months to make the revisions, the matter expires and the pre-examination process will begin again from the appointing of the pre-examiners, unless the Committee decides otherwise due to unusual circumstances.
• In cases where a second pre-examination round is needed, the supervising professor needs to give grounds for the selection of the pre-examiners in the second round, if they are not the same persons as in the first round. These grounds can be, e.g., that the same pre-examiners are not available for a second round, the topic has changed, or that a different kind of expertise is needed.

If a pre-examiner recommends denying the permission of public defence

• If the manuscript has serious deficiencies with the quality of research and/or research integrity, the pre-examiner must propose that the permission for public defence is not granted.
• In case one or more pre-examiners propose that the permission is denied, the doctoral student has the right to stop the examination process. The stopping of the process means that the Doctoral Programme Committee will not handle the proposals of the pre-examiners, and the pre-examination process expires. The examination process is stopped by informing the Secretary of the Doctoral Programme Committee in writing.
• If the process is stopped but the doctoral student wishes to continue to work on the doctoral thesis, they need to negotiate with the supervising professor and submit a new research plan to the Doctoral Programme Committee. A doctoral thesis based on the new research plan can be submitted for pre-examination at the earliest 6 months after the new research plan has been accepted.
• If the doctoral student chooses not to stop the process, the Committee shall make a decision. In this case the student should submit a written reply to the statements to the Secretary of the Doctoral Programme Committee by the meeting deadline.

Pre-examiners have 6 weeks to submit their statements.

Statements from the pre-examiners and correction report

Once the statements of the pre-examiners have arrived, the Committee's secretary sends them to the doctoral student and the supervising professor. The doctoral student must make an official reply, i.e. answer to the suggestions and comments and show the corrections based on the pre-examination statements. Also, if  a submitted paper has been accepted or altered during the pre-examination process, include the updated status information of this paper in reply to the Committee.

Doctoral student replies to given comments and submits these documents to the Committee for the right to publish thesis:

1. Final version of thesis manuscript (possibly with updated information of submitted publications)
2. Report of corrections: Doctoral student copies each remark and makes a numbered list of them (a), then replies to the each point of pre-examiner's remarks (b), and the list of changes and additions based on the statements. Together with this correction report, submit also the supervising professor's approval for it.
3. Tracked changes copy of manuscript as PDF

Your response must be clear, detailed and robust. Revised manuscript and report of corrections must be approved by supervising professor before submission to the Doctoral Programme Committee. Please note that the report might be submitted to the pre-examiners again for the second pre-examination round. Also the Opponent can request to have them prior to the defence. Technical corrections such as spelling and grammar corrections and the quality of figures and tables can be fixed until the start of printing.

Candidate has max. 12 months time to reply, correct and submit the report and the revised manuscript to the secretary of the Committee, but candidates are strongly adviced to make carefully revision as soon as possible. If submission of correction report accepted by the supervising professor exceeds 12 months time line, the pre-examination process will be ended with decision of "fail".

Decision making of the Doctoral Programme Committee

The Doctoral Programme Committee makes a decision on granting permission for public defence after receiving both pre-examination statements. When making the decision, the Doctoral Programme Committee takes into account the dissertation itself, the statements of the pre-examiners as well as a possible official written reply submitted by the doctoral candidate.

The decision will be such as one the following listed below:

• The dissertation has nothing in particular to correct. Permission for public defence is granted.
• The doctoral candidate has made minor corrections to the dissertation as suggested by the pre-examiners. Permission for public defence can be granted.
• The doctoral candidate is expected to make moderate corrections to the dissertation as suggested by the pre-examiners. The committee will discuss the permission for public defence again.
• The doctoral candidate is required to make major corrections to the dissertation as suggested by the pre-examiners. The committee will discuss the permission for public defence again. Possibly asking one of pre-examiners for second statement of the revised manuscript.
• The contents of the dissertation require extensive revisions along with other corrections and suggestions for improvement. Revised dissertation may need 2nd examination round for the acceptence.
• The dissertation at the present state does not meet the requirements for the doctoral thesis. One or all pre-examiners mark "fail" to the grading table. Committee will decide how to proceed with it.

Permission for public defence - decision process of the Doctoral Programme Committee

It takes on average 6 months to graduate after submission of manuscript for pre-examination.  Please check the approximate timeline from pre-examination to graduation. The timeline gives you hints about processing times in different steps. The steps are listed below:

1. The statements of the pre-examiners arrive, and the presenting official sends them to you and your supervising professor.
2. You have 4 working days to make an official written response*, if necessary. Please note that official written response in not the same thing as the response letter that addresses the corrections and is written after the decision. So, if you are satisfied with the statements and there are no misunderstandings in them, you don’t write the official response. We recommend that you inform the Doctoral Education Services of ELEC also if you will not write an official response. This fastens the process in many cases.

3. First decision based on the statements. The Doctoral Programme Committee makes decision on granting permission for public defence. When making the decision, the Doctoral Programme Committee pays attention to the thesis itself, the statements of the pre-examiners, and the possible official written response* submitted by the student.
   
   The decisions are made in an email meeting or in a regular committee meeting. An email meeting is not held if the Doctoral Programme Committee members have a significant disagreement over granting permission for public defence, or if the doctoral student has made an official written response on the statements of the pre-examiners. In such cases the Doctoral Programme Committee will always discuss the matter of granting permission for public defence in a regular meeting. You can read more about decision schedule on the Doctoral Programme Committee's page.

   Informing on the decision. The presenting official informs you and your supervising professor on the decision by email. The decision types (A-E) and required corrections and documents are described below.

4. Corrections and response letter. You correct the thesis, as suggested in the statements, and write a response letter describing the corrections made and answering to the comments of the pre-examiners. The supervising professor approves the corrections. The required documents are submitted to the Doctoral Education Services of ELEC. You can read more about schedule for the submission of corrections on the Doctoral Programme Committee's page.

5. Second round decision / confirmation based on the corrections. Depending on the previous decision, either the whole Committee will check the corrections and make a new decision (if the previous decision was C or D), or the Committee Chair will check the corrections and confirm the conditional permission (previous decision B).

   Informing on the decision. The presenting official informs you and your supervising professor by email on the decision of the Doctoral Programme Committee/ Committee Chair. 

*Official written response: The doctoral student has a chance to make an official written response on the pre-examiners' statements. An official written response can be made, e.g., if the pre-examiner has misunderstood something in the thesis and there are significant mistakes in the statement that may affect the decision on granting permission for public defence. An official written response is to be made before the first decision of the Doctoral Programme Committee. A possible official written response is sent to the Doctoral Education Services of ELEC.

The decision types for permission for public defence

Different categories for the decisions are listed below. You can read more about the decisions and required corrections here.

You can read more about schedule for the submission of corrections on the Doctoral Programme Committee's page.

Category A: Permission granted

The thesis has nothing in particular to correct. Permission for public defence is granted as is. The supervising professor will check the minor linguistic and/or editorial corrections, if needed. Read more.

If you get decision A on the first or further decision round, you should write this decision date on the abstract page of your thesis at the publication platform.

Category B: Permission conditionally granted

Conditional permission for public defence is granted to the manuscript. The doctoral student is advised to make minor corrections to the doctoral thesis as suggested by the pre-examiners, and within the given deadline. The corrections will not be taken to the Doctoral Programme Committee for a new decision, but the Chair of the Committee will evaluate the corrections made and will confirm the public defence. Read more.

If you get conditional permission for public defence, you should write this decision date on the abstract page of your thesis at the publication platform (not the date of further confirmation).

Category C: Permission not granted, corrections required

The doctoral student is advised to make moderate corrections to the doctoral thesis as suggested by the pre-examiners, and within the given deadline. The Doctoral Programme Committee will make a new decision after receiving the corrections. Read more.

Category D: Permission not granted, corrections required

The doctoral student is advised to make major corrections to the doctoral thesis as suggested by the pre-examiners, and within the given deadline. After receiving the corrections the Doctoral Programme Committee will make a new decision on sending the revised thesis for re-examination. Read more.

Category E: Rejected

The manuscript in its current form is rejected. The contents of the thesis require extensive revisions along with other corrections and suggestions for improvement. If a corrected manuscript is submitted, the pre-examination process starts over. Read more.

Changes after permission for public defence has been granted

After the permission for public defence has been granted, you are allowed to do only minor corrections (eg. spelling mistakes), or corrections required by the Doctoral Programme Committee.

Without permission from the Doctoral Programme Committee, you are, for example, not allowed to:

• Change the title of the thesis
• Change the results in the thesis
• Add/remove/change articles/manuscripts to other ones

If a submitted article that is included in your thesis gets accepted for publication you can change the manuscript to the accepted version if you have done no changes to the content of the article.

If the article is accepted for publication with the prerequisite that certain changes should be made, please follow the guidelines below:

1. If the changes asked for are minor, you can change the manuscript to the accepted version after the acceptance of your supervising professor. You need to make a freely formulated short clarification of the changes made to the manuscript and the supervising professor needs to approve these changes with their signature. You should inform Doctoral Programme Committee about these changes by sending the approved clarification to Doctoral Education Services of ELEC.
2. If you are asked to do bigger changes or add or remove substantial results, keep in the thesis the manuscript that has been included in the pre-examined thesis.

The doctoral thesis is examined electronically, but a paper version of the manuscript can also be sent to the examiners if needed.

The pre-examiners have four weeks to submit their statements. Two weeks before the deadline the Doctoral programme will send a reminder to the examiners.

Granting permission for defence

On receiving the statements of the preliminary examiners, the Doctoral programme committee (DPC) examines the dissertation and the statements.

The evaluation of the Doctoral programme committee:

Examples of the doctoral thesis examination process at the School of Engineering

CASE 1.

• Student has a chance to remark* on the pre-examiners' statements within four (4) days after receiving statements.
• DPC discusses the permission to public defence in a meeting/an e-mail meeting and grants the permission to public defence.
• The thesis has nothing in particular to correct. Permission to public defence is granted.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.

CASE 2.

• Student has a chance to remark* on the pre-examiners' statements within four (4) days after receiving statements.
• DPC discusses the permission to public defence in a meeting/an e-mail meeting and grants the permission to public defence.
• The doctoral student is advised to consider the minor correction propositions given by the pre-examiners. Time allowed for thesis corrections is 6 weeks. Repeating the process is not required and a clarification of the made corrections is NOT needed. Permission to public defence is granted.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.

CASE 3.

• Student has a chance to remark* on the pre-examiners' statements within four (4) days after receiving statements.
• DPC discusses the permission to public defence in a meeting/an e-mail meeting and makes a decision of the required corrections.
• The doctoral student is advised to make moderate corrections to the dissertation.Time allowed for thesis corrections is 3 months.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.
• Revised manuscript and an account of the corrections are submitted to the DPC presenting official along with a written statement from the supervising professor.
• DPC re-examines the thesis and grants the permission to public defence.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.

CASE 4.

• Student has a chance to remark* on the pre-examiners' statements within four (4) days after receiving statements.
• DPC discusses the permission to public defence in a meeting/an e-mail meeting and makes a decision of the required corrections.
• The doctoral student is advised to make significant  corrections. Time allowed for thesis corrections is 1 year.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.
• Revised manuscript and an account of the corrections are submitted to the DPC presenting official along with a written statement from the supervisor.
• Revised manuscript is sent to pre-examiner(s) for additional  reviewing.
• Student has a chance to remark on the pre-examiners' statements within four (4) days after receiving the last statement.
• DPC discusses the permission to public defence in a meeting/an e-mail meeting and grants the permission to public defence.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.

CASE 5. The doctoral thesis requires so extensive corrections that the thesis examination process starts over.

• Student has a chance to remark* on the pre-examiners' statements within four (4) days after receiving statements.
• The student can stop the examination process if the pre-examiners' statements give cause to expect DPC to give a decision to reject permission to public defence. After stopping the examination process the student may discuss continuing to write the doctoral thesis with the supervising professor.
• DPC is informed of the decision to stop the examination process.
• If the student chooses not to stop the process, DPC shall make a decision.
• The doctoral thesis requires so extensive corrections that the thesis examination process starts over.
• The supervising professor and the student are informed of the decision.
• After stopping the examination prcess the doctoral student may discuss continuing to write the doctoral thesis with the supervising professor.
• After completing the new thesis manuscript the pre-examination process will start over again. The doctoral student shall apply for permission to publish starting with selecting the pre-examiners. The supervising professor writes a separate proposal (with motivations) to DPC concerning the new pre-examiners.

LANGUAGE CHECK: The Doctoral Programme Committee may, at its discretion, require that the language of the manuscript is checked. Certificate of the language check is to be submitted to the presenting official.

*Student has a chance to remark on the pre-examiners' statements. A remark can be made, e.g. if the pre-examiner has misunderstood something in the dissertation.

An e-mail meeting of the Doctoral Programme Committee: A meeting can be held via e-mail for discussing a single matter if it is urgent or there other justifiable reasons requiring it.

An e-mail meeting is not held if the Doctoral Programme Committee has a significant disagreement over granting permission to publish or a student's remark on the pre-examiners' statements is up for discussion.

It takes on average 6 months to graduate after submission of manuscript for pre-examination.  Please check the approximate timeline from pre-examination to graduation. The timeline gives you hints about processing times in different steps.

Statements of pre-examiners

Pre-examiners have 4 weeks to submit their statements. 

Once the statements of the pre-examiners have arrived, the presenting official sends them to the doctoral student and the supervising professor. The doctoral student is given a chance to make an official written reply on the statements of the pre-examiners within four working days. The official written reply is sent to the Doctoral Education Services.

An official written reply

The doctoral student has a chance to make an official written reply on the pre-examiners' statements. An official written reply can be made, e.g. if the pre-examiner has misunderstood something in the doctoral thesis and there are significant mistakes in the statement that may affect the decision on granting permission for public defence. An official written reply is to be made before the decision of the Doctoral Programme Committee. (Note that this will generally delay the process, so should be used only in cases of serious misunderstanding or examination errors.)

Decision making of the Doctoral Programme Committee

(Updated by the Doctoral Programme Committee 20 June 2023, new guidelines will take effect as of 1 August 2023.)

The Doctoral Programme Committee makes a decision on granting permission for public defence after receiving both pre-examination statements. When making the decision, the Doctoral Programme Committee takes into account the doctoral thesis itself, the statements of the pre-examiners as well as a possible official written reply submitted by the doctoral student.

Usually the decision is made in an email meeting. An email meeting is not held if the Doctoral Programme Committee members have a significant disagreement over granting permission for public defence or if the doctoral student has made an official written reply on the statements of the pre-examiners. In such cases the Doctoral Programme Committee will discuss the matter of granting permission for public defence in a regular meeting.

The doctoral student and the supervising professor are informed of the decision of the Doctoral Programme Committee.

The decision will be one of the following listed below:

Decision 3

• The doctoral thesis requires no or only minor revisions.
• The supervising professor checks the revisions made to the manuscript and an account of the revisions made is not required by the Doctoral Programme Committee.
• Permission for public defence is granted. 

Decision 2

• The doctoral student is advised to make revisions to the doctoral thesis as suggested by the pre-examiners.
• The Committee will discuss the permission for public defence again.
• The corrected manuscript, an account of revisions (see below) along with a written statement from the supervising professor, confirming that the revisions have been done, are submitted to Doctoral Education Services.
• The Doctoral Programme Committee will decide on permission for public defence based on the revised doctoral thesis, the account of revisions and the statement of the supervising professor.

Decision 1

• The doctoral student is advised to make revisions to the doctoral thesis as suggested by the pre-examiners.
• The Committee will discuss the permission for public defence again.
• The revised manuscript, an account of revisions (see below) along with a written statement from the supervising professor, confirming that the revisions have been done, are submitted to the Doctoral Programme Committee.
• The revised manuscript and the account of revisions are sent to both pre-examiners for a re-examination.
• The Doctoral Programme Committee will make a new decision on permission for public defence based on the revised doctoral thesis, the account of revisions, the statement of the supervising professor and the re-examination statements of the pre-examiners.

Decision 0*

• The requested revisions and highlighted flaws are so extensive that the Doctoral Programme Committee does not believe that an acceptable thesis can be realized in a reasonable time.
• The examination process is stopped.
• The doctoral student may discuss continuing to write the doctoral thesis with the supervising professor.
• After completing the new doctoral thesis manuscript the pre-examination process will start over again. The supervising professor writes a separate proposal (with motivations) to the Doctoral Programme Committee concerning the new pre-examiners.

* Stopping the examination process:

• The doctoral student may stop the examination process if the pre-examiners' statements give cause to expect that the Doctoral Programme Committee will not grant permission for public defence.
• The examination process can be stopped by informing the Doctoral Programme Committee about it (an email to Doctoral Education Services).
• If the doctoral student chooses not to stop the process, the Committee shall make a decision.

An account of corrections

Concerns decisions 1 ja 2 described above:

The doctoral student is requested to make a clarification of the revisions made to the doctoral thesis manuscript. In the account of revisions, the doctoral student responds to all the comments of the pre-examiners and clarifies where in the doctoral thesis the revision has been made. If no revision is made for a particular pre-examiner comment this should be justified.

Revision deadline

• Decision 2: The doctoral student has a maximum of three months from the date of the Doctoral Programme Committee’s decision to make the needed revisions to the doctoral thesis manuscript. On reasonable grounds, the time may be extended upon request.
• Decision 1: The doctoral student has a maximum of one year from the date of the Doctoral Programme Committee’s decision to make the needed revisions to the doctoral thesis manuscript.
• If the doctoral student will not be able to make the revisions to the doctoral thesis manuscript before the given deadline (which is one year from getting the decision), they may stop the examination process by informing the Doctoral Programme Committee about that (an e-mail message to Doctoral Education Services).
• If the doctoral student cannot be reached, they have not sent a revised manuscript of the doctoral thesis by the deadline, or they have not stopped the examination process, the Doctoral Programme Committee will stop the examination process in its meeting.

Language check

The Doctoral Programme Committee may, at its discretion, require that the language of the manuscript is checked. The certificate of the language check is to be submitted to the Doctoral Education Services.

Changes after permission for public defence has been granted

Once the permission to defend the doctoral thesis has been granted, only minor corrections are allowed (e.g. spelling mistakes) or corrections specifically requested by the preliminary examiners or the Doctoral Programme Committee.

Without permission from the Doctoral Programme Committee, you are not allowed to:

• Change the results in the doctoral thesis
• Add/remove/change articles/manuscripts/essays to other ones
   

If a submitted article that is included in your doctoral thesis gets accepted for publication you can change the manuscript to the accepted version if no changes to the content of the article has been made.

If the article is accepted for publication with the prerequisite that certain changes should be made:

• and the changes asked for are minor, you can change the manuscript to the accepted version after the acceptance of your supervising professor. You need to make a freely formulated short clarification of the changes made to the manuscript and the supervising professor needs to approve these changes with his/her signature. The Doctoral Programme Committee will be informed of these changes by sending the approved clarification to Doctoral Education Services.
• and you are asked to do bigger changes or add or remove substantial results, the manuscript that has been granted permission for public defence should be kept in the doctoral thesis.