In principle, a PhD requires:

• A Master's degree or equivalent.
• A person to supervise the doctoral project.
• The criteria of the PhD guidelines must be fulfilled (you can find the PhD guidelines here: Examination regulations of the departments of the RPTU)

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: Sind Sie der Typ für eine Promotion? - academics

There are different types of PhDs

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

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

A further distinction can be made in the type of care provided:

• Individual PhD
  This form of PhD means that future doctoral candidates look for a supervisor for their PhD project independently.  
• Structured doctoral programmes
  In these programmes, there are often additional offers in the interdisciplinary and ‘soft skills’ area for an additional qualification.
• External PhD
  In this case, the doctoral students 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 PhD:

1. Jobs at the university are usually linked to another activity (e.g. teaching)
    (You can find offers here: Stellenangebote und Karriere - RPTU Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau)
2. Third-party funded positions or scholarships (usually PhD supervisors can help you here)
3. Reasearch Training Groups
   ( current research trainings groups of the RPTU can be found here: Coordinated Research)
4. Scholarships
   You can find general information about scholarships on the following pages. You can use the scholarship database to find out which scholarships are suitable for your subject.
   General information: homepage (stipendiumplus.de)
   Scholarship databases:
   http://www.mystipendium.de
   Scholarship database by e-fellows.net
5. So-called external doctoral studies:  Financing your livelihood through another activity
6. Cooperation in the free enterprise

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 make a good decision.