For international applicants seeking admission to our doctoral programme, we recommend sending copies of all required application documents to the Doctoral Examinations Office before departure in order to ascertain whether all admission requirements have been met. This will prevent unnecessary delays and ensure that you will be able to enrol at the University of Münster after being granted admission to the programme by the Faculty of Biology.
Doctoral candidates from embargo states:
As of January 1, 2024, new rules for the collaboration with embargo states (a long list of more than 30 states!) are in force. This includes registration of doctoral students from these countries. If as a research group leader, you consider hiring a doctoral student from one of these states, or if as a potential candidate, you consider doctoral studies at our Faculty, make sure to enquire ahead of time about the requirement to obtain permission to do so. As this is a new rule, we cannot yet anticipate how much time such an enquiry will take. You can find more information here. Thank you for your understanding.
Registration of the dissertation project
To register your doctoral project (dissertation), you must first obtain consent from your future doctoral supervisor. He or she must belong to the group of professors or members of staff with post-doctoral qualification (habilitation) and is appointed to the doctoral committee with two other members (who must also belong to the abovementioned group). For more details, see § 5 “Doctoral Committee” in the Doctoral Examination Regulations of 30 October 2019. Candidates must register within the first six months after commencing their dissertation.
Also within six months of commencing the dissertation, the doctoral candidate and his/her supervisor must sign and submit the doctoral supervision agreement in the corresponding structured doctoral programme (SDP).
The following documents are required for admission to the doctoral programme in the Faculty of Biology:
- request for admission to the doctoral programme
- statement by the doctoral committee
- officially authenticated copies (or original and copy) of university degree certificates (and translations in German or English, if necessary)
- curriculum vitae (CV)
From application period for the winter semester 2023/24, the APS certificate became a compulsory part of the application and enrollment for applicants with Indian degrees.
other required documents:
- information for doctoral candidates at the start of the doctoral examination process
- list of possible biologists on the committee (in German only)
- differences between the old (2007), new (2019) and amended (2020) doctoral examination regulations