Doctoral Ombuds Committee

The Doctoral Ombuds Committee is available to all doctoral candidates who have problems with their doctorate as a first and low-threshold point of contact.

You can find the website of the Doctoral Ombuds Committee here.

Information for those interested in a doctorate

This page will be filled in gradually and is intended to simplify the beginnings of your research. It is not legally binding. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us: zgapl[at]rptu.de or the young talent circle gf[at]nachwuchsring.uni-kl.de

In principle, a doctorate requires:

There are several financing options for living expenses, which are described under "Financing".

Under the following link you will find a further test that can give you an idea of whether a doctorate suits you: Test: Are you the type for a doctorate? – academics

There are different types of doctorates.

On the one hand, a distinction can be made between a monographic and cumulative doctorate.

  • Monographic means that a complete text is written on one (doctoral) topic.
  • A cumulative doctorate consists of several articles that are published in recognised specialist journals.

A further distinction can be made in the type of supervision:

  • Individual doctorate
    This form of doctorate means that future doctoral candidates independently find a supervisor for their doctoral project.
  • Structured doctoral programmes
    In these programmes, there are often additional offers in the interdisciplinary and "soft skills" area for an additional qualification.
  • External doctorate
    In this case, the doctoral candidates do not have an employment relationship at the chair where they are doing their doctorate. They usually have another job. This means that they often have fewer ties to the university. 

There are several ways to finance a doctorate:

  1. Jobs at the university usually combined with another activity (e.g. teaching ).
    (Job offers and careers - RPTU University of Technology Kaiserslautern-Landau can be found here)
  2. Third-party funded positions or scholarships (here are good contacts for possible doctoral supervisors)
  3. Graduate College
    (existing graduate programmes at the RPTU can be found here: Coordinated Research – RPTU University of Technology Kaiserslautern-Landau)
  4. Scholarships
    On the following pages you can find general information about scholarships. In the scholarship database you can research which scholarships are suitable for your subject.
    General information: Homepage (stipendiumplus.de)
    Scholarship databases: http://www.mystipendium.de
    Scholarship database of e-fellows.net - e-fellows.net
  5. So-called external doctoral studies:  Financing your livelihood through another employment
  6. Co-operation in the private sector

When financing a doctorate, please note that scholarships are usually not subject to social security contributions. It is best to inform yourself in advance about the topic of "social insurance" in order to be able to make a good decision.