Faculty of Social Sciences: submitting the doctoral thesis

• The consent of the coordinating academic and the main supervisor is required to submit the doctoral thesis for preliminary examination. The submission of the thesis manuscript for review must be agreed well in advance with the coordinating academic, who needs a reasonable time to submit a proposal for a pre-examiner for the faculty. Two pre-examiners are appointed for the thesis. More information about choosing a pre-examiner can be found here. The Faculty Council appoints candidates as pre-examiners if they meet the set criteria. Check the Faculty Council's meeting schedules well in advance.
• The doctoral candidate is responsible for the content of the work submitted for pre-examination. The supervisor(s) are responsible for ensuring that the work is of such a quality that it can be submitted for preliminary examination. When it is time to begin the pre-examination process, the person in charge will submit a formal proposal to the faculty for the appointment of pre-examiners.
• The doctoral student's responsibility is to ensure that the language in the thesis corresponds to the level required of scientific publications. The thesis manuscript can be language checked if you have written the thesis in a language other than your mother tongue and especially if your supervisor considers it necessary.
• It is the supervisor's responsibility to check that the manuscript submitted for preliminary examination is consistent in structure and the language is clear, and that it meets the general requirements set for a doctoral thesis. Here you will find the criteria for the Faculty of Social Sciences' doctoral thesis.
• Remember that you must be registered as an attending student from the beginning of the examination process until the graduation date.
• A description of the entire dissertation process and its rules can be found on the faculty's website. The faculty's senior advisor for Doctoral Student Services acts as a rapporteur on matters related to doctoral theses at the meetings of the Faculty Council.

The manuscript and all material related to the preliminary examination (list below) must be submitted to the faculty's Doctoral Student Services (valt-postgrad@helsinki.fi) no later than 12 days (14 days from spring 2026 onwards) before the Faculty Council meeting (see the submission schedule for the thesis below). The files are sent as separate files, either as email attachments or as attachments to the electronic pre-examination form.

Required documents

• Fill in your details in the pre-examination form and save the details. After the data has been saved, both the doctoral student and the coordinating academic confirm that they have approved the pre-examination candidates by sending a message to valt-postgrad@helsinki.fi.
• The manuscript is sent as a single PDF file (either a monograph or a summary and articles). Attach any account of co-publications to the same file. The file is called: Last name_Dissertation.pdf. To compile the file, you can use the PDF-Xchange Tools or PDF-Xchange Editor programs installed on the University's workstations. If the manuscript is too large to be sent by email, please use Funet Filesender.
• You should also send the report on co-authored publications as a separate file in the same email or as an attachment to the form.

For more information, please contact the Faculty of Social Sciences' Senior Advisor for Doctoral Student Services valt-postgrad@helsinki.fi. More detailed instructions on language revision, manuscripts, study modules and the report on co-authored publications can be found below.

Manuscript format requirements

The faculty has not given any instructions on the matter. You can therefore use your own judgment, but the simplicity of reading and processing is definitely a good starting point. The cover page of the manuscript of the doctoral thesis must include the following information: the title of the thesis, your name, contact information (at least email address), name of the discipline, doctoral programme and supervisor. You can find more information about the accessibility of the thesis here.

Read more about the support for the faculty's Open Access publications in research activities.

Pdf file of the manuscript

You should submit your manuscript as a single file. To compile the file, you can use PDF-Xchange Tools or PDF-Xchange Editor programs installed on the University's workstations. Further help with this can be obtained from the university's IT Helpdesk. Computers that are freely available to students at the University of Helsinki are located in the center of Helsinki at Alexandria and the Kaisa Library, for example. The file must be in PDF format so that the text and its format cannot be accidentally changed when sent or checked. You must also make sure that the different parts of the manuscript (e.g. the abstract of the article-based thesis and the partial publications or the monograph with appendices) are in exactly the order in which they are intended, and therefore you must ensure that the different sections are combined in the desired order.

Completion of the study module

In accordance with the current curricula of doctoral programmes, doctoral studies must usually be completed before the thesis is submitted for preliminary examination. In particular, the subject-specific studies should be carried out in their entirety. 

Instructions for registering studies and compiling study modules can be found on the page Registration of doctoral studies. The studies required for your degree can be found on the page Scope and structure of doctoral degrees after you have selected your doctoral programme in the menu at the top of the page.

Language revision

No instructions or recommendations have been given on language revision, but it is worth discussing it with the supervisor. Usually, the manuscript of the thesis is reviewed after the pre- examination and before it is printed, but it is also possible to do so before the pre-examination if necessary. The thesis manuscript can be reviewed if you have written the thesis in a language other than your mother tongue. The Faculty of Social Sciences grants support for the proofreading of doctoral theses. For more information, see the page on Language revisions of doctoral dissertations.

Report of co-authored publications

If the manuscript is an article-based manuscript in which some of the articles are co-authored, your contribution to the joint publications must be described. In the case of joint publications, you will prepare a free-form report on your contribution to each joint publication together with your supervisor to determine your independent contribution. The report is signed by the doctoral student and the supervisor. It is recommended that you also submit a draft of the report to the other authors of the articles. The content of the report must be such that the pre-examiners can assess whether your work input is sufficient. The length is a maximum of 1 page/article. 

The report is included in the summary of the thesis and is sent as a separate file to the faculty's doctoral student services either as an attachment to the pre-examination form or by e-mail: valt-postgrad@helsinki.fi

Autumn 2025

Spring 2026

Once the Faculty Council has appointed the pre-examiners, the Faculty Council's rapporteur sends the manuscript to the pre-examiners together with the general pre-examination instructions. This usually takes place a few days after the meeting, as well as the announcement of the decision to the doctoral candidate. 

The pre-examiners assess the thesis manuscript in their statements based on the assessment criteria for the Faculty of Social Sciences' doctoral thesis. The pre-examiners have four weeks to issue a statement considering the holiday periods.

To keep in mind in the pre-examination process: 

• Once the Faculty Council has approved the pre-examiners for your doctoral thesis, we will inform you of the decision and the deadline by which the statements should be submitted.
• If the statements are delayed, we will speed up the pre-examiners. If you do not hear anything about the statements, you can always ask us about the situation.
• The pre-examiners send their statements directly to the faculty within four weeks – not to the doctoral student, the person coordinating academic or the supervisor. Once we have received both statements, we will send copies of them by email to you, your supervisors and the coordinating academic.
• For justified reasons, it may take longer to write the preliminary statements, which is why it is not advisable for the doctoral candidate to draw up binding timetables for his or her dissertation at this stage. The doctoral candidate must make the corrections proposed by the pre-examiners before the doctoral thesis is completed, so it is advisable to reserve time for this in advance.
• You have the right to submit comments on the statements to the Faculty Council before a decision is made on granting permission to defend your doctoral thesis.
• If the pre-examiners in their statements recommend that permission to defend the thesis be granted, we ask your coordinating academic and supervisors to submit a proposal to the members of the grading committee (opponent, custos and faculty representative(s).
• When you have received two statements recommending permission to defend your thesis, you can also reserve a place for the public defence. You will receive instructions on this at the same time as you receive the positive statements.
• The goal is to have the permission to defend processed by the Faculty Council as soon as possible – we will inform you of the timetables for the processing of the permission to defend at the same time as you receive the statements.
• Only after the Faculty Council has granted permission to defend the thesis based on the positive preliminary examination statements can the doctoral candidate start planning the printing of the doctoral thesis. First, read the general instructions on permission to defend your thesis and publish your thesis.

What happens if the statements are not positive?

If one or both pre-examiners give a negative statement, the pre-examination is usually discontinued. You will receive information about this at the same time as you receive the statements. Discontinued pre-examination processes will be notified to the Faculty Council. 

After the pre-examination procedure has been suspended, the doctoral candidate may request a new preliminary examination when changes have been made to the manuscript as mentioned in the rejection statement or if other changes have been made and the supervisors and the coordinating academic are in favour of the start of the preliminary examination.