PhD Dissertation

2–3 months before you expect to submit your PhDissertation

It is expected that the PhD dissertation will be submitted to the graduate school at the end of the enrolment period.
You must inform your supervisor of the expected submission date in good time prior to the expected submission of your PhD dissertation.
The principal supervisor must notify the PhD programme director of the expected submission of the PhD dissertation no later than two months in advance.
If the expected submission date falls within the periods 15 June – 15 August or 15 December – 15 January, the notification must be no later than three months in advance.
The PhD programme director is responsible for appointing an assessment committee and must provide a recommendation to the relevant PhD programme administrator well in advance of your dissertation submission.

How to submit your PhD Dissertation - Guide

Contact the PhD Administration at: graduate.school.arts@au.dk
When you are ready to submit your PhD dissertation, contact the PhD Administration. They will provide you with a link to upload your dissertation. While waiting for the link, and before uploading, please complete the following steps:
Close your PhD Plan
Ensure your Principal Supervisor completes the form: Form: Principal Supervisor’s Statement
Complete the form: Declaration of Honour
Prepare your activity list: Form: List of Activities
If Applicable, complete the following form: Form: Co-Authorship Declaration
Combine documents into a single PDF
Once you have completed steps 2–6, combine the relevant forms and files into a single PDF document.
Upload your Dissertation
When ready, upload the final version of your PhD dissertation via the link provided by your PhD administrator.
Notify the PhD Administration
After submitting your dissertation through the link, inform the PhD administration and forward the compiled PDF (from step 2–6) to them.

Type of PhD Dissertations

The PhD dissertation may take one of the following forms

A monograph: A dissertation written independently by the PhD student.
An article-based PhD dissertation: A collection of several academic texts that are related in content and/or methodology and where the results obtained during the PhD degree programme are presented and possibly published, either by the PhD student alone or by the student together with other authors. In addition, the dissertation must include a separate presentation by the PhD student that takes the form of a large-scale overview article. The presentation must describe:
- The overall research project
- The overall issues addressed by the dissertation
- The precise research field, and the research methods and theories
- An overview of the research (if this is not made clear in the separate works)
- The relationship between the individual texts, and their relationship to the overall project
- The result achieved, with an evaluation of the methods used
- The relationship of the research result obtained to other significant research in the field

Both types of dissertations must also include a summary/abstract in Danish and English.

PhD Dissertation requirements

Language

The dissertation must be written in Danish or English.
It is possible to apply for an exemption from this rule. If you find it crucial for your dissertation to be written in a language other than Danish or English, please fill out the application form below and return it to your PhD administrator.

Application form

Application forms received after your enrolment cannot be processed.

The PhD administration must receive your application form two months before your expected submission date and within your enrolment period.

Length

The total length of the dissertation may not exceed 250 standard pages of 2,400 characters per page (max. 600,000 characters in total) including spaces, notes/footnotes, tables, and diagrams.
Please note that the dissertation abstracts (Danish and English) as well as the bibliography, catalogues, appendices, etc., are not included in the maximum number of characters.

It is possible to apply for an exemption from this rule. If you find it crucial for your dissertation, please fill out the application form below and return it to the PhD Administration

Application form

Application forms received after your enrolment cannot be processed.

The PhD Administration must receive your application form two months before your expected submission date and within your enrolment period.

Abstracts

The dissertation abstract must be written in both Danish and English.
The abstract may not exceed five standard pages (2,400 characters per page) in length.
The abstracts must be included in the dissertation you are submitting. The pages of the summary are not included in the total number of pages of the dissertation.
If a dispensation has been given for the dissertation to be written in a language other than Danish or English, a version of the abstract in that language must also be included.

Title

If the dissertation is written in Danish: The title of the dissertation must be stated in both Danish and English in the dissertation.
If the dissertation is written in English: The title of the dissertation must be stated in English in the dissertation.
If a dispensation has been given for the dissertation to be written in a language other than Danish or English, a title in that language must also be included.

No changes after submission

After submission, it is not possible to make any changes to your dissertation.
This includes wording, correction of spelling mistakes, replacement of articles in manuscript form with published articles, etc.
The submitted dissertation is the final version.

Close your PhD plan before your enrolment expires

As a PhD student enrolled at Arts you must remember to log in to your PhD plan and make sure that all courses and other activities are either marked ‘Completed’ or `Discarded´ before your enrolment expires. When you have made sure that your plan is ready to be closed click the ‘Close plan’ button. The plan will then be passed on to the administration.
Once your plan has been closed and your access to MyPhD has been revoked you can no longer access the information in your PhD plan. Please remember to take a copy of the data before your access is revoked.
If you do not close the PhD plan when your enrolment expires we will close the plan for you 6 months after the enrolment expired and your access will be revoked. Open activities will be marked as `Discarded´.
You will not get access to the PhD Plan again once your access has been revoked.

Copyright

From the Rules for the PhD Programme at the Graduate School, Arts
"All rights to the dissertation belong to the author; unless a special agreement concerning intellectual property rights has been entered into with external parties at the time of the enrolment on the PhD programme. If the author enters into an agreement with a publisher or the like concerning publication of the dissertation in whole or in part, the publisher's agreement must be secured at the same time to the effect that the dissertation can be assessed in accordance with rules currently in force, including section 19(2) of the PhD order. In cases where the PhD dissertation includes work with several authors, declarations from the co-authors must be submitted together with the dissertation stating that the co-authors are aware that the work forms a part of a PhD dissertation and stating the extent and nature of the PhD student's share of the work. These declarations must be dated and signed by the co-authors and the PhD students as author of the dissertation submitted".

Please see these pages for further information

English page: https://library.au.dk/en/researchers/copyright
Danish page: https://library.au.dk/forskere/ophavsret

You can also contact Steen Hammershøy Andersen (shan@kb.dk) at the library.

Presentation folder for PhD defence

If you would like a presentation folder in connection with your PhD defence you can find a template below.
Template for presentation folders in connection with PhD defences:
- Danish version
- English version

Online Publication of the PhD dissertation

After conferment of the PhD degree you are welcome to upload your dissertation on the Royal Danish Library’s e-book platform: https://openbooks.kb.dk/au

Before you publish you must ensure that

You only upload your own material or material for which you have been given prior permission from the other author(s) to do so.
If the dissertation consists of articles which are published or submitted to other journals you need the acceptance from the publishers. You can normally get this permission by following the instructions found here: https://library.au.dk/en/researchers/copyright/reusing-or-republishing-your-own-work
The dissertation does not contain any personally sensitive data.
The dissertation does not contain information which can be used in an application for a patent.
If you want to publish the dissertation later via another publisher you need to ensure that the other publisher will accept that you have published your dissertation on AU Library’s E-book platform.

The service is free of charge.

If you have questions regarding the platform please see this page: https://openbooks.kb.dk/au/about/contact.

For further information please see: https://library.au.dk/en/researchers/publishing/publish-e-books/

Registration on your AU Pure profile

Once the degree has been obtained, the dissertation title will automatically be registered on your AU Pure profile. The publication itself will not be published automatically, but it is possible to add a PDF or DOI to the registration manually afterwards (please contact pure@au.dk if you need help with this).

The Pure dissertation page will remain even after ended employment.

The information that is automatically recorded includes the title of the PhD dissertation, the author’s name and department, the date of degree conferral, and the internal AU supervisors. This information will appear on both the author’s profile and the profiles of the internal supervisors.

Graduate School, Arts