Göttinger Graduiertenschule Gesellschaftswissenschaften

Some Answers about doing your PhD

First of all, we would like to welcome you! As Graduate School of Social Sciences, we will use our best endeavor to be a supportive companion during your PhD. Here we provide information for PhD students who have just started doing their PhD or joined GGG only recently. This section is mainly intended for newcomers but holds useful information for experienced PhD students as well.

Admission to PhD

You can find general information on admission to PhD studies and enrollment at Göttingen University on the Office for Student Affairs’ website. For all questions concerning prerequisites, application deadlines, recognition of academic degrees, and the PhD procedure please contact the Dean’s Office or the Office of Student Affairs in the respective faculty.  After you have found a professor to supervise your PhD, you should clarify financing e.g. with your supervisor. The GGG is pleased to help you by providing competent support in PhD Funding guidance. Please enroll at the university’s Registrar‘s Office once you have received admission by the faculty. Enrollment is obligatory for PhD students.

Doctoral studies

There are two ways of doing a PhD in social sciences at Göttingen University:
  • doctoral program at the Faculties of Law, Social Sciences and Economic Sciences or
  • in a doctoral group, e.g. a Research Training Group (RTG).

A doctoral program means you will write a thesis, or scientific papers (cumulative dissertation) and complete a structured study program additionally. In doing so, you will take courses on methods and key competences as well as colloquia amounting to 20 credits in total. This is the only way of doing a PhD in the faculties mentioned above.
A doctoral group subsumes PhD students with regard to a particular topic. These groups work interdisciplinary or across institutes. A list of all current groups belonging to GGG  are available online.
It is recommended, or obligatory (depending on the type of PhD) that you and your supervisor sign a PhD agreement, determining starting point, subject and the parties involved in your PhD. Moreover, you should discuss your work’s progress with your supervisor on a regular basis, at least once a year.

This is also about compliance of good scientific practice, which the scientific community is committed to. To avoid scientific misconduct, Göttingen University and the DFG have published a collection of recommendations (see in particulat the rules for ensuring good scientific practice).
During your PhD studies you will not be supervised by a single person but a supervising committee. Such committees consist of two, mostly three PhD supervisors, and you. This institution has been established to make PhD students talk about the progress of their PhD regularly and find a solution together in case there are problems.
All types of PhD studies have in common that the thesis is to be submitted at the faculty, with the oral exam being taken at the faculty as well. Therefore, you will have the respective Office of Student Affairs’ support in all formal aspects of your PhD.

The defence (Disputation)

After the assessment of your (cumulative) dissertation, you will take the so-called „defence“ of your thesis as an oral examination. The procedure and the participants are defined in the doctoral regulations (Promotionsordnung) of your faculty.
You have the opportunity to watch and listen to such a disputation with other doctoral candidates. To do this, ask the doctoral candidate in advance whether he/she/* agrees that you take a seat. Such an impression can be very clarifying and reassuring for the preparation of your own disputation.

Support by the GGG

Once you have been admitted for doing a PhD in one of the doctoral groups, at the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Social Sciences, or the Faculty of Economic Sciences, or at parts of the Faculty of Forest and Agricultural Sciences, you automati­cally become a GGG member.
We kindly ask you to send our questionnaire to GGG and update it, in case of changes, to make sure we are able to contact you. Your data will be treated confidentially and used within GGG only.
There are no obligations attached to GGG membership. In fact, you have access to:

Please visit the GGG’s website at www.ggg.uni-goettingen.de and read the newsletter for an overall view of the GGG team, our offers and application deadlines. Once you have registered at GGG you will automatically receive our newsletter. If for some reason this should not be working, please inform us by sending an email – e.g. if you are an university employee and would like to receive the newsletter as well.