• Skip navigation
  • Skip to navigation
  • Skip to the bottom
Simulate organization breadcrumb open Simulate organization breadcrumb close
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
  • Deutsch
  • UnivIS
  • Contacts and directions
  • Careers at FAU
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Navigation Navigation close
  • FAU
    • News
    • Welcome to FAU
    • Strategy and objectives
    • History and remembrance
    • Campus locations at FAU
    • Site development at FAU
    • Organisation and committees
    • Legal regulations
    • Finding your way around: contacts and directions
    • Faculties and organisational units
      • Faculties
      • Universitätsklinikum Erlangen
      • Central research institutions
      • Collaboration and partnerships
    Portal FAU
  • People
    • Students
    • Employees
    • Researchers
    • Alumni
    • Working at FAU
      • Jobs at FAU
      • Professorships
      • Energy technology and technical building services
      • Vocational training at FAU
      • Training and career development at FAU
    • Gender/Diversity/Family
    • New at FAU/Onboarding/Incoming
    • Offboarding/Outgoing
    Portal People
  • Education
    • Student orientation
    • Degree programmes
    • Application and enrolment
      • Application and enrolment for internationals
    • Advice and services
    • Study organisation
      • Terms from the university life
      • Semester dates
      • Re-registration and semester fees
      • Online platforms for organising your studies
      • Start of the semester
      • Degree programme and examination regulations (Link to our German website)
    • International
      • Information for international applicants
      • Going abroad
    • Student life
    • Teaching at FAU
      • Quality management in teaching and studying
    • Information for parents
    Portal Education
  • Research
    • Research profile
      • Key Research Priorities at FAU
      • Research Focus Areas at the Faculties
      • Rankings
    • Collaborative research
      • EU collaborative projects
      • DFG projects
      • Federal projects
      • Collaborative research in Bavaria
    • Outstanding individual research
      • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize
      • Alexander von Humboldt Professorship
      • ERC grants
      • Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize
    • Research projects and partnerships
      • Max Planck Institutes
      • Fraunhofer Institutes
      • Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg
      • Energie Campus Nürnberg
      • Nuremberg Campus of Technology
      • Medical Valley
    • Welcome Centre for International Researchers
    • Graduate Centre
      • Doctoral degrees at FAU
      • Service for Young Academics
    • Services for researchers
      • Funding, advice and submitting applications
      • Publications and research data
      • Research information system
      • Science communication
      • FAUconnect
    • Responsible research
    Portal Research
  • Outreach
    • Events
    • Inventions and patents
      • Intellectual property (IP) policy of FAU
      • Service for inventors
    • Innovation and start-ups
      • Partnerships and collaborations
      • Innovation platforms and networks
      • Consulting services for start-up businesses
    • Professional development
    • Donations
      • FAU Innovation Fund
      • Deutschlandstipendium (Germany Scholarship)
    • FAU for companies and organisations
    • Science for citizens
    • FAU Shop
    • Press Office
    Portal Outreach
  • Corona-Info
  1. Home
  2. Graduate Centre
  3. Doctoral degree

Doctoral degree

In page navigation: Graduate Centre
  • Doctoral degree
    • Your path to a doctoral degree
    • 'Promotion', PhD and MD
    • Doctoral regulations
    • Registering your doctoral project
    • Enrolment as a doctoral candidate
    • Offices of Doctoral Affairs
    • Monographic and cumulative theses
    • Good scientific practice
    • Publishing
    • International
    • Binational doctoral degrees
    • Funding your doctoral degree
    • Contacts at the faculties
    • General FAQs
  • Structured doctoral programmes
    • Arts and humanities
    • Sports science
    • Law, economics and social sciences
    • Mathematics and natural sciences
    • Medicine and health sciences
    • Engineering
    • EU projects
    • BayWISS Joint Academic Partnerships
    • FAUnetwork RTG
    • Graduate Centre services for doctoral degree programmes
    • Applying for a doctoral programme
  • For supervisors
    • Supervising doctoral procedures
    • Annual performance review with doctoral candidates
    • Supporting the habilitation procedure
    • Accepting doctoral candidates and guest researchers from non-EU states
    • FAUattract
  • Postdoctoral research and habilitation
    • Starting the postdoctoral phase
    • General conditions
    • Head of junior research group status at FAU
      • Our heads of junior research groups at FAU
      • Application procedure
    • Funding for postdoctoral researchers and habilitation candidates
    • Information on spending time abroad
    • Funding for female postdoctoral researchers
    • Professional development (seminars)
    • FAUpostdocday
    • FAUcoaching
    • ENET – the excellence track for high potentials
    • FAUprofund programme
  • W1 professorships (junior professorships)
    • General conditions
    • Continuing education
    • FAUnext career programme
      • Conditions of participation
      • Individual status review
      • Module People
      • Module Education
      • Module Research
      • Outreach module
      • Module Professorship as a career goal
      • Module: Career paths outside university
      • Module: Negotiation skills
      • Career coaching
    • Service centres
  • Seminars and events
    • Information about participation
    • Other events and seminars
  • Networks
  • Information and services from A to Z
  • Graduate Centre
    • Steering committee
    • Contact

Doctoral degree

Initial considerations

New regulations due to the coronavirus pandemic concerning deviations from degree programme and examination regulations and the doctoral degree and habilitation regulations came into force on 18 April 2020. Coronavirus Regulations and the implementation provisions from the faculties.

There are several ways to obtain a doctoral degree at FAU. The options available depend on your subject and your research project. Whichever way you choose, you will have access to our range of seminars and events, our administrative support and our assistance with networking. Or are you unsure yet whether you actually want to complete a doctoral degree? We are happy to advise you during a consultation.

If you would like an in-depth consultation, please contact us in advance to arrange an appointment.

To ensure that doctoral degrees are completed successfully it is important that doctoral candidates and their supervisors are aware of their rights and responsibilities. The check list Good practice for carrying out and supervising doctoral degrees is used as a guideline. It provides the basis for the initial meeting between the doctoral candidate and their supervisor that must be held at the start of the process.

Different ways to obtain a doctoral degree at FAU

Individual doctoral degree

If you want to work on an individual doctoral degree you must find your own supervisor and work on your research project largely independently. Depending on your subject you may work alone or with other researchers. If you choose an individual doctoral degree, the length of time taken to complete it depends on your planning – or the duration of your contract. It usually takes three to five years.

Structured doctoral programmes

You can also complete a doctoral degree as part of one of FAU’s structured doctoral programmes. The programmes include a complementary curriculum that is often interdisciplinary and usually aim to enable participants to gain soft skills and additional qualifications. The intense, systematic supervision provided in these programmes should usually enable you to complete your doctoral degree within three to four years.

Doctoral candidates taking part in structured doctoral programmes also have main supervisors. Doctoral candidates usually organise a supervisor before applying to take part in a structured doctoral programme.

If you are interested in participating in one of our doctoral programmes, please apply directly to the persons responsible for the programme. An overview is available at Structured doctoral programmes.

Cooperative doctoral degrees

If you would like to complete a doctoral degree at a university of applied sciences, you can do this in co-operation with FAU. You will then have two supervisors, one from FAU and one from the university of applied sciences. If you are interested in pursuing this option, please contact the responsible Office of Doctoral Affairs or the head of the Graduate Centre, Dr. Stefanie Herberger.

Guide to cooperative doctoral degrees at FAU

External doctoral degree

In the case of external doctoral theses, doctoral candidates do not have close ties to the Institute or Chair, and are certainly not employed there. External doctoral candidates cover their costs with paid employment outside the University. FAU provides academic supervision and is entitled to award doctoral degrees. That means you need a supervisor at FAU who supports you in your research and your external doctoral degree. If you choose to do an external doctoral degree, you are considerably less involved in work at the Chair than you would be in the case of an internal doctoral thesis. Accordingly, the supervision relationship is much more casual and is restricted to discussing the doctoral thesis.

It ought to be borne in mind that allocating theses of this nature raises many questions about legal issues and processes that affect all those involved (students, companies, lecturers acting as supervisors, FAU). They are outlined in the Information sheet on allocating topics for and completing external Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral theses.

More information

    • Arbeitskreis Nachwuchsförderung an Bayerischen Universitäten (Working Group for Encouraging Young Talent at Bavarian Universities) (BayAK)
    • German University Association of Advanced Graduate Training (UniWiND/GUAT)
    • academics guide on doctoral degrees
    • Information from the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (Deutscher Hochschulverband)
    • Writing and publishing
    • Publishing and open access
    • President’s Welcome Award



  • Contact
  • Press Office
  • Intranet
  • What to do in an emergency
  • Reporting errors
  • Imprint
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Xing
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
Up