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Important time frames
- Recommendation: The evaluation committee has two months to submit a recommendation.
- Revision of a submitted thesis: The evaluation committee must present its final recommendation within 1 month after candidate has handed in a revision of a submitted thesis.
- Earliest date for trial lecture/public defence is 6 weeks after the recommendation has been approved.
- The faculty has its own semester deadlines for applications for evaluation. If you submit a complete application within the semester deadline, you are guaranteed that your application will be processed by the end of the semester.
How should the thesis be submitted?
Send application for evaluation as a zip file to postmottak@medisin.uio.no.
The following documents should be enclosed as separate PDF-files (use the filenames specified in parenthesis):
- Application form (application)
- Thesis (thesis) NOTE: Both presentation of scientific results and articles in one file. The thesis should contain a Norwegian and English summary.
- Confirmation of approved educational component (educational component)
- Co-author declarations (co-author)
- Declaration of permits procured (approvals)
- Proposal for evaluation committee and chair of defence (committee proposal)
- Declarations of impartiality (impartiality)
Documents to be enclosed when submitting your thesis
Your application for evaluation can only be processed if you enclose the following:
2. Confirmation of approved educational component.
3. Co-Author declaration (docx). Declaration about the candidate's and each co-author's contribution to the individual works submitted for evaluation. Only the 5 most important co-authors of an article have to sign the declaration, i.e. 15 declarations if 3 articles are to be included in the thesis. Each declaration must be signed, by hand or digitally, by both the candidate and the co-author. Make sure the signatures do not come on a separate sheet of paper.
4. Declaration of permits procured (docx). The form must be completed and signed by the candidate and all his/her supervisors. All permits must be enclosed with the application. Information about applications to REC and other bodies.
5. Proposal for evaluation committee and Chair of the defence (docx). The evaluation committee is proposed by the academic environment. The principal supervisor is responsible for ensuring that a signed proposal for evaluation committee form and declarations of impartiality from each proposed committee member is submitted. They can either be submitted by the principal supervisor to postmottak@medisin.uio.no or by the candidate along with the thesis. The supervisor must also suggest chairs of the defence. The chair of the defence must be approved by the dean and it is the responsibility of the supervisor to notify the chair of the defence of the date when the recommendation has been approved (the faculty will remind the supervisor of this). Any agreed upon date for the trial lecture and public defence made by the supervisor and evaluation committee is not binding to the faculty.
6. Declarations of impartiality (docx). The principal supervisor is responsible for submitting a declaration of impartiality from each proposed committee member.
7. Other declarations: If the main rules for the thesis are not fully met, one or more written declarations must be enclosed.
- Joint works may be included in a maximum of two doctoral theses, including your own. In such cases the principal supervisor must enclose a statement describing the candidate’s independent contribution to the joint work(s).
- As a general rule, the doctoral candidate should be first author on at least one (1) paper. Where the candidate is not first author, the candidate must have made substantial contributions to data collection/processing, interpretation of results, and manuscript writing.
- At least one paper/manuscript in the thesis shall be published or accepted for publication in a peer‑reviewed journal.
The declarations must be written in English as they will be sent to the assessment committee.
More about thesis requirements
The requirements for a PhD thesis are set out in § 10.1 of the Regulations for the PhD degree (link) and the Faculty’s supplementary rules to the Regulations § 10.1.
Source and citation check of doctoral thesis
All doctoral theses handed in for evaluation at the Faculty of Medicine are routinely scanned by a text recognition programme before the evaluation process is initiated. The entire thesis is scanned by the programme, but it is the thesis summary ("kappa") that is checked most thoroughly. If the candidate has handed in a monograph, the entire thesis is checked.
The routine has been introduced to ensure that doctoral theses at the Faculty of Medicine follow current guidelines for referencing at UiO. The programme reveals any text similarities between the candidate’s work and previously published works, and makes it easier to assess whether text excerpts are correctly and sufficiently referenced.
If the report generated by the programme shows text similarities that require further inspection, the principal supervisor and candidate will receive the report for review, and the candidate gets the opportunity to correct any mistakes or deficiencies in the references before the thesis is sent to the committee for evaluation.
The programme will not cover all sources, and the candidate still has an independent responsibility to ensure that all sources used in the thesis are correctly and sufficiently referenced.
Useful links:
Status of articles
After you have submitted your thesis for evaluation, you cannot change the status of your papers (manuscripts/articles) when printing the thesis. For example, an article with the status "in press" cannot change its status to "published" prior to printing.
Correction of formal errors in the thesis (Errata)
You may apply for permission to correct formal errors in the thesis after submission. Errata is a list of corrections made in a thesis after it has been evaluated, but before it is printed.
Can a submitted thesis be withdrawn?
A thesis cannot be withdrawn after it has been submitted for evaluation. Once you have submitted it for evaluation, a final decision must be made as to whether it is worthy of defence.
Can all or part of a thesis be exempted from public disclosure?
The thesis must be printed in the form in which it was submitted for evaluation, subject to any revisions made on the basis of the committee's preliminary comments, cf. the PhD Regulations § 14.2.
No restrictions may be placed on the public release, including the publication, of a doctoral thesis, with the exception of a previously agreed postponement of the public release date. This must be agreed BEFORE the thesis is submitted for evaluation. Such postponement may be permitted when the research training has been partially or completely funded by an external party, to allow that external party to consider possible patenting.
The external party is not entitled to deny the public release or publication of the thesis, neither in whole nor in parts, cf. § 5.2.
Time for trial lecture and public defence
Trial lecture and public defence can at the earliest take place six weeks after the faculty has found the thesis worthy of defence.
Forms
- Application for evaluation of thesis for the degree of PhD (docx)
- Co-author declaration (docx)
- Declaration of permits procured (docx)
- Proposal for evaluation committee and chair of the defence(docx)
- Declaration of impartiality (docx)