How to Apply to Doctoral Training in the Faculty of Technology

TECHNOLOGY (Degree: Doctor of Science in Technology)

AUTOMATION AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

• Automation and Electrical Engineering

BIOTECHNOLOGY

• Biotechnology
• Food Development
• Sustainable Biotechnological Processes

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT (also Doctor of Philosophy degree is possible)

• Industrial Engineering and Management

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

• Information and Communication Technology

MATERIALS ENGINEERING

• Materials Engineering

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

• Mechanical Engineering

NATURAL SCIENCES (Degree: Doctor of Philosophy)

BIOSCIENCES

• Biochemistry
• Food Chemistry
• Molecular Biotechnology and Diagnostics
• Molecular Plant Biology

COMPUTER SCIENCE

• Computer Science

HUMANITIES (Degree: Doctor of Philosophy)

COMMUNICATION SCIENCES

• Phonetics

Graduate School's call for applications

You can see the call for applications only during the application period.

There are two application periods for the doctoral study right each year (in March and September).

• The application periods during the academic year 2024-2025 are
  • 28.8.2024 - 13.9.2024 at 16:00 (study right begins 1.1.2025  + doctoral researcher positions under an employment contract starting 1.1.2025).
  • 28.10.2024 - 8.11.2024 at 16:00 (study right begins 1.1.2025)
  • 3.3.2025 - 14.3.2025 at 15:00 (study right begins 1.8.2025).

The application is filled in via the electronic application form of the doctoral programme.

The decisions of September application round will be informed by the end of November and decisions of March application round will be informed by the end of May.

The application call, a link to the application form and detailed instructions for applying will be published on the websites of each doctoral programme. Please read carefully the instructions of the doctoral programme before your start filling in the application form.

How to Apply for Doctoral Training at the University of Turku

Persons who meet the eligibility criteria for pursuing a doctoral degree, as stipulated in the Universities Act (558/2009, Section 37) as well as the eligibility criteria for the right to study for a doctoral degree at the Faculty of Technology.

Eligible applicants for studies leading to an academic or artistic licentiate or doctoral degree have completed

1. a relevant Master’s degree awarded by a university;
2. a relevant Master’s degree awarded by a university of applied sciences; or
3. a relevant applicable study programme abroad which in the awarding country gives eligibility for the corresponding level of higher education.

You can apply for the right to study for the doctoral degree from the Faculty of Technology, even if the degree awarding the qualification is not quite completed at the end of the application period. The qualifying degree must be completed and the applicant must submit scanned certificates of the completed degree to tech-doc (a) utu.fi by the deadline.

• The deadline for completion and submission of certificates in the September (28 August - 13 September 2024) application period is 15 November 2024.
• The deadline for completion and submission of certificates in the October-November (28 October - 8 November 2024) application period is 30 November 2024.
• The deadline for completion and submission of certificates in the March (3 March - 14 March 2025) application period is 31 July 2025.

• Before applying, the applicant has to discuss supervision arrangements with their future supervisors and prepare a supervision plan. In this plan, supervision arrangements are agreed upon: supervisors and the research director are named.

• Ensure that you have the necessary documents of your certificates. See Delivering degree certificates below.

• Prepare all required application documents. See Application documents below.

• Consider your possibilities for funding the doctoral training.

• Read carefully the application instructions of your doctoral programme and the application call.

Supervisor

According to the Rector’s decision each doctoral researcher must have at least two supervisors. One supervisor acts as the main supervisor or UGIS supervisor. The Faculty may appoint only one supervisor for a doctoral researcher based on application and for a valid reason. A supervisor must have completed a doctoral degree, and at least one of a doctoral researcher’s supervisors must be a professor (professor, associate professor or assistant professor) or an adjunct professor.

Rector's decision on supervision of doctoral researchers

Additional instructions on supervision of doctoral researchers

In the Faculty of Technology, one of the doctoral researcher's supervisors has to be employed by the University of Turku or be docent (adjunct professor) of the University of Turku.

Only one supervisor may be appointed for a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Technology upon application and for a justified reason. When only one supervisor for doctoral training is proposed, the supervisor’s justified plea for approval of only one supervisor must be attached to the application. When appointing only one supervisor, the regulations on supervision presented in the code of conduct of doctoral training of the Faculty of Technology and the following additional criteria apply:

• The supervisor’s prior merits in supervision of doctoral researchers.
• The supervisor must be able to dedicate a sufficient amount of time to supervision, and must possess sufficient knowledge of supervision practices at the University of Turku.
• The supervisor must present a reasoning for why the thesis project in question is suited for supervision by only one supervisor.
• The scope and methodology of the thesis project are such that supervision by only one supervisor is sufficient.
• In addition to one supervisor, a follow-up group must be appointed for the doctoral researcher.

The duties of the supervisor are, among others:

• to direct the doctoral researcher in planning and completing postgraduate studies;
• to direct the doctoral researcher in planning and completing research and completing the thesis;
• to follow the progress of research and postgraduate studies in accordance with the supervision plan;
• to accept an annual update of a personal study plan, if needed;
• to assist the doctoral researcher in making contact with other researchers in the field and with users of the research;
• a principal supervisor has to give a statement on the activeness of a doctoral researcher in connection with annual progress reporting;
• to assist the doctoral researcher in applying for funding by providing information on available options;
• to assist in career planning by having an annual discussion on the subject;
• to ensure that a thesis written in a second language undergoes a language check if needed;
• to be responsible for checking the originality of the thesis with the plagiarism detection system.

Research director

On admission to the Faculty, postgraduate students are appointed a research director. The Faculty appoints the research director based on the proposal made by the department which is responsible for the research field in question. A person eligible for research director is an employee of the Faculty whose title is Professor. In an exceptional case where there is no Professor available, an Associate Professor can be appointed as research director.

A Professor may continue as research director after he/she has retired. However, a Professor Emeritus/-ita cannot be appointed as research director.

The research director may also be one of the supervisors. If this is the case, the student must also have at least one other supervisor or a thesis follow-up group.

The duties of the research director include:

• to monitor the progress of research work and postgraduate studies annually in collaboration with the supervisor;
• to assume responsibility for the scientific level of the degree;
• to accept the first personal study plan of a postgraduate student and the application for the final grade of the postgraduate studies module. The research director ensures that the required learning outcomes of postgraduate studies are achieved with the completed postgraduate studies and thesis work.
• to ensure that the thesis as a whole meets the requirements regarding the extent of a doctoral thesis;
• to make a proposal for the pre-examiners, opponent and chairperson (custos) of a doctoral thesis;
• to provide the Faculty with a statement approved by the supervisor, research director and doctoral researcher indicating the author’s contribution to the research if the thesis contains joint publications. The statement must also say whether a part of the thesis has previously been used in another thesis or if such use is being planned;
• to ensure that the intended final version of a licentiate or doctoral thesis is delivered to the examiners by the student, supervisor or research director immediately after their appointment
• to ensure that a doctoral thesis is delivered to the opponent by the doctoral researcher, supervisor or research director immediately after the opponent has been appointed;
• to help solve possible cases of disagreement in supervision

Doctoral researcher

The doctoral researcher has the primary responsibility for the progress of their studies. The responsibilities of the doctoral researcher are defined as follows:

• the doctoral researcher carefully prepares for meetings and follows the agreed schedule;
• the doctoral researcher completes postgraduate studies independently with the supervisor’s support;
• the doctoral researcher annually participates in the agreed number of postgraduate courses and ensures that they are appropriately registered;
• the doctoral researcher is responsible for the progress of their research work and for informing the supervisor and the doctoral programme on the progress made according to the agreed reporting schedule and in the agreed manner;
• the doctoral researcher informs the supervisor and the research director (+ possible follow-up group) of all changes that considerably affect working conditions, progress of the thesis project or keeping with the agreed schedule;
• The doctoral researcher hands in an annual follow-up report to the doctoral programme.

Attach to your electronic application as a scanned copy:

1. Degree certificate and the transcript of study records
   • If the applicant has completed the former degree(s) which make their eligible for doctoral studies at a university in Finland, the degree certificates, the transcripts of study records and other educational documents which may be of relevance in the student selection must be attached to the electronic application form.
   • If the applicant has completed the former degree(s) which make them eligible for doctoral studies at a university abroad (i.e. outside Finland), they must attach the following items to the electronic application form:
     • scanned or electronic original degree certificates (in the same language as the degree was completed in)
     • scanned or electronic original transcripts of study records (in the same language as the degree was completed in)
     • scanned or electronic other original educational documents which may be of relevance in the student selection

     • If the original degree certificates and other educational documents are not written in English, Finnish or Swedish, official translations to one of these languages must also be submitted. An official translation here refers to a translation of the educational documents issued by the awarding institution or a translation made by an authorized translator. A transcript in English can be replaced by a Diploma Supplement awarded by a European educational institution if it contains the information about completed courses and other study attainments.

       Those applicants who have been granted a right to study and who have completed their prior degree abroad have to submit either the original degree certificates or certified copies of the degree certificates and other educational documents and the official translations of the documents to the University of Turku as instructed in the admission notification. If the admitted applicant does not deliver the required certificates by the deadline set in the admission notification, they forfeit the study right. Instructions on delivering certificates and country-specific requirements are available here:

       • Providing original educational documents
2. Language test certificate (if required, see Language requirements for admission)
3. Supervision plan signed by supervisor(s), a research director and the applicant
   • Supervision plan DPT
   • Supervision plan DRDP, DPCR, ImmuDocs
4. Curriculum vitae: Please see the instructions of TENK for writing a CV.
5. List of publication: Instructions in English and in Finnish
6. Research plan: See instructions on writing the research plan from the websites of doctoral programmes.
7. Doctoral programmes can have their own additional requirements of the documents. See, more information of required documents on the websites of programmes.

Applicants must have good English language skills and a certificate that proves those skills.

Language requirements for right to study for a doctoral degree

The doctoral programme evaluates the applications once the application period is over. Selection is based on the information presented in the application and its appendices. If necessary, the doctoral programme may use external experts for review purposes and also evaluate the suitability and motivation of an applicant by conducting interviews.

In addition to the eligibility criteria for doctoral degrees, the educational and research-related merits, the quality of the research plan, and the research potential based on the application are used in the evaluation and selection of doctoral researchers. In the selection process, applicant's motivation, merits, completed studies, and the grade a Master's thesis (or equivalent) will be taken into account. A necessary prerequisite is that the doctoral candidate can be assigned at least two supervisors who have the scientific merits required of a supervisor (see Supervisors, Research director and Doctoral researcher for more information). The doctoral researcher's research topic must fit in with the faculty's and its departments' reserach profile.

Applicants are selected on the basis of the information provided in the application and its appendices. Admitted postgraduate students are required to have been successful in their prior studies. If the field of the Master's degree differs from the field of research of postgraduate studies or there are other shortcomings in prior studies, knowledge and skills may be required to be supplemented to achieve a sufficient level. The appointed research director of a postgraduate student gives a statement on the possible need for so-called bridging studies. Admission is also dependent on the proposed research topic fitting the Faculty’s and its departments’ fields of research and the Faculty having the necessary resources for teaching and supervision available.

Vice Dean of the faculty decides on the study rights based on the evaluation of the doctoral programme and the statement from the department. The applicants will be individually informed about the decisions.

Should an applicant be dissatisfied with the decision, they may appeal against it by delivering a written, substantiated appeal to the Faculty of Technology within 14 days of being informed about the decision. The appeal is delivered by email to tech-doc@utu.fi.

When applying for a study right, the degree certificate and transcript of studies of the degrees (Master's or equivalent) which grant the eligibility to apply as well as other selection criteria-related study certificates must always be attached to the electronic application as scanned copies.

If the certificates are in a language other than English, Finnish, or Swedish, a scanned copy of an official translation to one of these languages must be attached to the electronic application. A translation provided by the institution which has granted the degree, a translation by an authorized translator, and a certified copy of the institution's or an authorized translator's translation all count as an official translation.

1. If the applicant has completed the prior degree which grants the eligibility to apply in a Finnish institution, verifying the degree will be conducted in the My Studyinfo (Opintopolku) system, and the degree certificates do not need to be delivered later on.
2. Accepted applicants who have completed their prior degree abroad, must deliver certified copies of the certificates and transcripts and their translations to the University of Turku as instructed in the acceptance letter. If the applicant does not deliver the certificates as required, the study right will be cancelled.
   • Providing original educational documents

To maintain your right to doctoral studies, you have to confirm the study place in Studyinfo service by the deadline informed in the acceptance email.

Confirming a study place is a binding choice, and you cannot cancel or change your choice later. When you confirm a study place, you will no longer be able to confirm any other study places which start at the same term in Finnish higher education institutions.

After you have confirmed the study place, you will be registered as an attending student at the University of Turku for the next academic season/year. When this is complete you will get an email which also includes the instructions on how to get an UTU account and a password.

A student completing a postgraduate degree is required to enrol annually as instructed by the university. Only a student who has enrolled as "attending" may participate in teaching and complete studies at the university.

Registration with the University for Postgraduate Education

After registration of your study right

UTU Account and Password

All questions regarding applying can be sent to tech-doc@utu.fi

Contact information for the faculty's doctoral training services

Information for a new doctoral researcher