University of Helsinki

The acceptance of a dissertation

The opponent must submit to the Faculty Council a reasoned written statement on the dissertation within six weeks of its public examination. The Faculty Council grades the dissertation (dates of Faculty Council meetings), taking into account the doctoral candidate’s defence at the public examination. Before the dissertation is graded, the doctoral candidate must be provided with the opportunity to object to the opponent’s statement.

The Faculty requests that the opponent also submits a copy of his or her statement to the custos of the public examination.

At the invitation of the custos, a grading committee chaired by the custos proposes a grade for the dissertation. One member of the grading committee must be a professor at the department who attended the public examination or, in special circumstances, a docent familiar with the topic of the dissertation. The other member must be able to assess the dissertation and the public examination impartially. If one of the members of the grading committee did not attend the public examination, the committee must state the reasons for this in its grade proposal to the Faculty Council.

When writing their proposal, the grading committee must consult the opponent and the supervisor of the dissertation, unless the supervisor also served as the custos.  The committee can also consult the preliminary examiners of the dissertation and other professors at the department. In its proposal to the Faculty Council, the grading committee must indicate whom it has consulted concerning the proposal.

The custos must also provide the Faculty with his or her assessment of the doctoral candidate’s defence at the public examination.

The Faculty of Science assesses doctoral dissertations using the grades Pass with Distinction, Pass and Fail. Doctoral dissertations are graded by the Faculty Council. The dissertation grading committee proposes the grade. The documents that serve as the basis for the grading of doctoral dissertations include statements by the preliminary examiners, the opponent and the dissertation grading committee.

The approval and grading of doctoral dissertations is governed by Section 44 of the Universities Act (Act No 558/2009) and Sections 42–44 of the Regulations on Degrees and the Protection of Students’ Rights at the University of Helsinki. To supplement the above regulations, the Faculty of Science issued on 14 September 2006 instructions entitled “The doctoral dissertation and its preliminary and public examinations, approval and grading” as well as this decision on the Faculty’s dissertation assessment criteria and grade descriptions
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According to Government Decree No 794/2004 on University Degrees (Section 21), the objective of scientific  postgraduate education is that the student

1) becomes well-versed in his or her own field of research and its social significance and gains knowledge and skills needed to apply scientific research methods independently and critically and to produce new scientific knowledge within his or her field of research;
2) becomes conversant with the development, basic problems and research methods of his or her own field of research; and
3) gains such knowledge of the general theory of science and of other disciplines relating to his or her own field of research as enables him or her to follow developments in them.

According to the Faculty’s decision, a doctoral dissertation is a consistent scholarly work based on independent research that makes an original contribution to knowledge. The author must master the most salient rules of academic writing and demonstrate an ability to produce independent and critical work. The research must be scientifically convincing and the results well-grounded. The research must be scientifically honest and meet the norms set for research ethics.

At the Faculty of Science, the following criteria are applied in the assessment of doctoral dissertations:

• The significance and status of the research within the research field
• The doctoral candidate’s contribution to the attainment of the dissertation’s research results
• The scope of the work and adequacy of the research material
• Application and development of the research methods
• The deduction of results from the material studied
• The consistency of the structure of the work
• Familiarity with and use of the literature
• The composition of the dissertation (presentation, style and language)
• The doctoral candidate’s ability to defend his or her research at the public examination

The grade of Pass with Distinction will be awarded only to dissertations of exceptional quality under the assessment criteria. The purpose of the Faculty’s preliminary examination procedure is to ensure that the dissertation can be approved after its public examination. However, a dissertation study authored by a doctoral candidate who has been granted the right to defend his or her dissertation at a public examination must be failed if, in the light of the assessment criteria, the dissertation has serious deficiencies and cannot be deemed to fulfil the minimum requirements set for doctoral dissertations
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A dissertation cannot be accepted at a Faculty Council meeting before the Faculty Office has received a written statement from the doctoral candidate, indicating that

• the doctoral candidate has read the opponent’s statement
• the doctoral candidate does not wish to object to the opponent’s statement or the grade proposed for the dissertation
  (Alternatively, the doctoral candidate can list his or her objections to the opponent’s statement and the proposed grade.) The Faculty has a form for this purpose.

The Faculty Office notifies the doctoral candidate of its decision on the acceptance of the dissertation.

According to the Regulations on Degrees and the Protection of Students’ Rights at the University of Helsinki, students dissatisfied with the grading of their Licentiate thesis or doctoral dissertation may appeal in writing to the Academic Appeals Board within 14 days of the receipt of the grading decision.  The Board can refer the grade back to the Faculty Council for reconsideration.