For your PhD in Heidelberg you need to choose a faculty and a structured PhD program. Depending on these choices you have different requirements to fulfil.
For the faculties you can currently decide between the faculty of biosciences or the new faculty of engineering (however currently (August 2023) they did not accept applications from our lab!). For both of these faculties the first step you need to do is to find a second (and third) supervisor for your thesis. Talk with Henrik about possible supervisors and try to take care of that at the beginning to have it out of your mind. If you choose the faculty of biosciences a structured PhD program is mandatory, for the faculty of engineering this is recommendend but you can also do an individual PhD program. One of the most relevant differences between the two faculties is that writing a cumulative thesis is only allowed in the faculty of engineering (however you need a good explanation why!). You'll find more information about the two faculties in the next section.
There are multiple PhD programs that you can choose from here. In our lab most PhDs chose between COLuMBuS, MathComp or HBIGS. Consider asking the current PhDs which program there are in to help you choose.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The following instructions are provided based on personal experience and are described according to the current procedures at the time of writing. It is your responsibility to double-check with the corresponding entity that the regulations/procedures described here still hold and have not changed. Please feel free to update this document if this should happen.
Here you'll find detailed information of the steps needed to fully enroll as a PhD student.
Note that the steps can be different between German, non-German EU and non-German non-EU citizens. Feel free to add such information based on your experience.
As mentioned before you need to choose a supervisor to apply to the faculty. Since Henrik is currently not part of the engineering faculty, this is a bit tricky. You have to find a first supervisor from the engineering faculty that will also lead your thesis advisory committee (TAC). Either way you need to have three supervisors in total for your application. The second and third supervisor can be any member from the “Gesamtfakultät für Mathematik, Ingenieur- und Naturwissenschaften”, if not they will evaluate that on a case-by-case basis.
These are the things you need for your application: - Betreuungsvereinbarung / Agreement on Doctoral Studies - Antrag auf Annahme als Doktorand / Application for Admission as a Doctoral Candidate - Registration in heiDOCS - Acceptance letter from the PhD program (if you decide to do a structured one) - Certificate and transcript of records from your Master degree - Normal copy of your ID or passport - Justification why your PhD project can be considered engineering-related.
All of these documents need to be sent to them once electronically as pdf and once per post with the originals/certified copies.
If you have further questions, don't hesitate to contact them (promotion-ing@uni-heidelberg.de).
Before applying to the PhD program, you need to choose a second supervisor (additionally to Henrik). We keep an informal list of possible supervisors Potential supervisors.
You have to fill out and submit the following documents stated on the Biosciences Faculty webpage.
In the form, you should indicate the structured program you wish to attend. You should be pre-approved, requirements depend on the specific program. You should be provided the “blue sheet” of that program which will need to be filled as you advance in your PhD with the different requirements according to that specific program (DO NOT DISREGARD THIS during your doctorate or you will regret later!!).
Also they recently added the mandatory Research Integrity Course. Since someone has to create the certificate (“If you have finished the course and would like to receive a certificate, please contact ga-seminare@uni-heidelberg.de.”) and it can take some time to do that, I would recommend to finish this course as fast as possible!
The documents must be delivered by hand or via the postbox to the PhD office:
Dr. Anette Kurz and Dr. Rebecca Paimann
Dekanat der Fakultät für Biowissenschaften / Deanery of the Faculty of Biosciences
Promotionsbüro / PhD Office
Im Neuenheimer Feld 234, 5.OG / 5th floor, room 519 and room 521
69120 Heidelberg
Email: dekanat-bio@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
Tel: +49 (0)6221 54-5648
Fax: +49 (0)6221 54-4953
Please contact us via email and use the letter box of the Faculty of Biosciences (building INF 234, at the main entrance or on the 2nd floor “Faculty of Biosciences”) for document submission. PhD Registration (Annahme als Doktorand/in) and Submission of Thesis (Einreichung der Doktorarbeit und Zulassung zur Prüfung) are processed with a complete set of required documents only.
You can check for updated information and when they're out for holidays here.
There can be lots of people waiting, so it's highly recommended that you go early and/or bring some papers to read. Once all the papers are delivered and in order, they will send you a letter of acceptance to your work address. With your letter of acceptance (“Annahme als Doktorand/in”), you'll then be able to enroll the University as a PhD student.
Once accepted in a PhD program by the faculty, you're required to matriculate in the University.
You can request an exemption for matriculation in the University if you work at the University for more than 50% of regular working hours (100% = 38.5h/week) in such case, you can skip the following steps and just submit the exemption form attached in the letter you received with the admission to the faculty (the address of submission is in the form).
Depending on your citizenship as well as current affiliation to Heidelberg University, this step may differ.
If you are already enrolled in Heidelberg University, you can simply follow the instructions stated on this website to change your status to “Promotion”.
AND THAT'S IT!
You're officially a PhD student, throw a party or something to celebrate the end of such a bureaucratic nightmare.