Did you know that ...? News & Information from the Doctorate Office
So if you have a new address or your name changed and you have informed the Student Administration Office, the Doctorate Office will not be informed.
Please remember to always inform the Doctorate Office of any changes.
Based on the doctoral rules, the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy awards the academic title "Dr. rer. nat." for individual doctorates. The title "Ph.D." is only awarded to doctoral students of graduate programs on request.
The title "Ph.D." is not a possible translation, but a different title. The title "Dr. rer. nat." also remains in the English version of the doctoral certificate. The title may only be used in the form in which it was awarded. If the title "Dr. rer. nat." is translated as "Ph.D.", this is the unauthorized use of a title which has not been awarded and which can be prosecuted under criminal law.
So if you intend to change your supervisor during your doctorate, please apply for a change of supervisor immediately and submit it to the Doctorate Office. If you would like to have advice on your application or on changing your supervisor in general, you can contact the staff of the Doctorate Office during office hours or by telephone.
The standard time to completion for doctoral theses in the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy is 4 years. If it is not possible to submit the thesis within this period, an application for extension must be submitted approx. 4-6 weeks before the end of the standard time to completion. Please also note that there must be 2 years between the registration for the doctoral degree program and the submission of the thesis.
If you do not have an employment contract with the FU Berlin, you are required to enroll with the Student Administration Office. You can apply for de-registration from university in writing to the Student Administration Office at the end of the current semester at the earliest after submitting your thesis. You can find the application form for de-registration here.
In case you wish to de-register within the current semester, you must return the Campus Card to the Student Administration Office.
You should first send the necessary forms for the dissertation submission in advance by e-mail to the doctoral office, and afterwards you must send all the forms signed by hand - preferably with a ballpoint pen or pen - by post to the doctoral office. The same applies to the application for admission to the doctorate. The processing takes place promptly on the basis of the documents sent by e-mail. If you apply for an extension of the standard processing time, the electronically signed version of the form is sufficient.
For all doctoral candidates who have received an admission based on the submission of electronic documents, which is based on the requirement to submit the originals to the doctoral office at a later date, any deadline that may have been imposed in this context does not apply. In principle, the originals must be submitted within the standard processing time or at the latest before submission of the dissertation.
Due to the pandemic situation, however, we ask you to make an appointment for the submission of the originals only if the submission of the dissertation is foreseeable.
All other PhD students are asked to wait until we offer general office hours again (probably from spring 2022).
Therefore, every admission notification contains the condition to submit original documents (such as Bachelor's and Master's degree certificates) to the doctoral office by the time the dissertation is submitted at the latest. Please note that the dissertation can only be submitted once you have fulfilled all the conditions of your admission (e.g. presentation of the original documents as part of the admission application). Please refer to your admission notification for the conditions.