Publication of the dissertation

You may only use the title of doctor once you have published your dissertation and received your doctoral diploma. Doctoral candidates are obliged to make their dissertations available to the academic community within a certain period of time and in an appropriate manner. The dissertation must be published as a book, journal paper, contribution to an anthology, reproduced manuscript or in electronic form.

Doctoral candidates can usually decide themselves whether to publish independently or with the assistance of a publisher and whether to publish electronically or in print.

Mandatory copies

Mandatory copies must be submitted to the university library within a specified period, usually within one to two years after the oral examination. Only once you have presented evidence of publication and submitted the required mandatory copies can you be awarded the doctoral diploma and therefore use the title of doctor.

For publication it is often necessary to make editorial changes to your dissertation, which must however be approved beforehand, for example by the examination panel or the faculty.