Public defence

Following a positive assessment of the doctoral thesis, the candidate may register for the public defence. The purpose of the public defence is to defend the doctoral thesis, including the theoretical approach, research design, data collection and results, before an examination committee. The candidate should address the criticisms and suggestions raised by the reviewers in their reviews. For more information about the procedure of the public defence please see the Guidelines concerning the public defence of doctoral theses.

Examination committee

• The examination committee of a public defence must comprise at least three persons. The examination committee typically consists of the two reviewers and a chairperson. The candidate and the supervisor(s) need to propose members for this committee. The supervisor(s) may act as a member of the examination committee, but only in exceptional cases (e.g. if they acted as a reviewer of the doctoral thesis or one of the reviewers is unavailable on short notice). The Directorate of Doctoral Studies appoints the members of the examination committee.
• The member of the DSPL team responsible for the subject area serves as chairperson, but they can delegate the role to another faculty member who is allowed to supervise doctoral theses. The candidate and the supervisor(s) can propose a chairperson. All members of the examination committee contribute to the grading of the defence.

Scheduling

• It is the responsibility of the supervisor(s) to coordinate a suitable date for the public defence in consultation with the reviewers, the candidate as well as the representative of the respective discipline within the Directorate of Doctoral Studies or the proposed chairperson.
• The supervisor(s) and the candidate notify the SSC (doktorat.sozialwissenschaften@univie.ac.at) about the proposed date as well as the names of the members of the examination committee and the chairperson. The date of the public defence may already be scheduled before the assessment of the thesis is completed. However, the form “Registration for doctoral thesis defence” (SL/P4) can be submitted only after the positive assessment of the doctoral thesis. There should be at least 14 days between the receipt of the reviews and the public defence. The SSC books a room for the defence.

Participation of external reviewers

• If reviewers are unable to attend in person, public defences may be conducted in a hybrid format or entirely online.
• The University of Vienna supports and encourages the participation of external reviewers in examination committees and reimburses a maximum of € 700 per public defence to cover travel expenses and accommodation costs. For further information, please see the Guidelines for reviewers.

Result

• Upon successful completion of the public defence, doctoral candidates are officially awarded the academic degree “Doktor/Doktorin der Philosophie (Dr. phil.)” (doctor of philosophy). The doctoral candidate has the opportunity to celebrate the completion of their doctoral studies in a graduation ceremony. For further information, please follow the link to the Conference and Event Management Service.
• The degree certificate for the doctoral programme includes separate grades for the doctoral thesis, the public defence and the courses that have to be completed according to the Curriculum. If both the doctoral thesis and the public defence are assessed as “excellent” (Sehr Gut, 1) and if the unweighted arithmetic mean of the grades for the courses required for the degree programme is less than or equal to 1.50, the overall grade for the entire degree programme is “graded with honours”. In the remaining cases, the overall grade is “graduated”.