Faculty of Theology: submitting the doctoral thesis

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By selecting a degree programme you are able to see the general content as well as the possible degree programme-specific content. You do not have to select a degree programme to see the Open University's instructions.

This page provides detailed instructions to the students of the Faculty of Theology on how to submit a doctoral dissertation for preliminary examination. Remember to first read the general instructions on the planning of the timetable and the preliminary examination aimed at all doctoral students at the University.

Should you have any questions on how to launch the preliminary examination process, you can always contact the doctoral student services of your home faculty.

Before launching the preliminary examination process

Launching the preliminary examination process requires a recommendation by the supervisors and the coordinating academic (responsible teacher / responsible professor). The supervisors together with the coordinating academic will also find suitable preliminary examiners. For this reason it is important to notify your supervisors and the coordinating academic about your plans to submit your manuscript for preliminary examination to allow them enough time to read the latest version of the dissertation and start looking for suitable preliminary examiners.

When you submit your manuscript for the preliminary examination, Doctoral Student Services will contact your supervisors and coordinating academic and ask your coordinating academic for an official proposal on preliminary examiners. 

Also remember:

  • You have to be registered as an attending student from the beginning of the examination process until your graduation.
  • Ensure that you have completed all the studies required for the degree and the required studies and study modules have been registered. At least the 30 cr study module Discipline-Specific Studies (studies according to the new degree structure) must be completed and registered as a study module before submitting the dissertation for preliminary examination. Sometimes registering the studies can take a little time, but do not worry – you don't have to postpone submitting the thesis because of this. If the modules have not been entered into the register by the time you submit your thesis, it's enough for us that your supervisor confirms to us by email that they have approved the study modules and sent them for registering.

Submitting a dissertation for preliminary examination

Dissertations are submitted for examination at the Faculty’s Doctoral Student Services no later than two weeks before the next Faculty Council meeting. Exact submission dates and Faculty Council meeting times are available below. Dissertations are submitted for examination electronically:

  • Send the manuscript in PDF format to the Doctoral Services own Ouriginal email address (teol-tohtorikoulutus.hy@analyysi.urkund.fi) for plagiarism detection. After this, Ouriginal (previously called Urkund) will deliver a report on your manuscript to us in a few days. We will forward the Ouriginal report to your supervisor, who will review it and append their confirmation of a completed plagiarism detection check. The report will be sent to the supervisor only when they are asked to provide a proposal on preliminary examiners. Consequently, you do not have to worry if your supervisor has not received the report immediately after you have sent your dissertation to Ouriginal. We recommend that you submit the manuscript to Ouriginal at the latest on the Friday preceding your chosen submission date, as it takes a few days for Ouriginal to complete the report. It does not matter if you make minor changes to the manuscript after you have submitted it to Ouriginal.
  • Complete your background information on an electronic form at the latest on your chosen submission date.
  • On the same day, submit the manuscript in one PDF file to teol-tohtorikoulutus@helsinki.fi. In the case of an article-based dissertation, the manuscript includes the summarising report and articles (both published and as yet unpublished articles, the published articles of the dissertation in their publication layout), including a possible report on co-authored articles. If the manuscript is too large to be sent by email, please use Funet Filesender.
  • Once you have completed the form and sent us the manuscript, we will ask your supervisors and coordinating academic for a suggestion for preliminary and faculty representatives
  • The proposal must reach the Doctoral Student Services at the latest on Monday one week before the meeting.
  • If the proposal does not arrive in time, the matter will be discussed at a later meeting.
  • After we have received the proposal, we will send it to you for approval

If your dissertation is an article-based dissertation, please take into account the following:

  • If the dissertation includes co-authored articles, include in the manuscript information about which part in each publication is your contribution. The content of the report must be such that the preliminary examiners can evaluate whether the candidate’s contribution is sufficient.
  • Submit the report on co-authored articles also as a separate file in the same email together with the manuscript to teol-tohtorikoulutus@helsinki.fi.
  • As all authors must approve the report, please ask your co-authors to confirm that they approve your report, and then send the information to the Faculty doctoral student services (for example forwarded email or compiled document of confirmations will suffice). This information on the approval of the report need not be included in the manuscript.
  • If it is likely that the preliminary examiners will be from outside Finland, please draw up the report in English.

If your dissertation has been in preliminary examination before and the examination process has been discontinued, please take into account the following:

  • Like on the first time, the relaunch of the preliminary examination process always requires the approval of the supervisors and the coordinating academic. For this reason it is important to notify them about your plans to submit your manuscript for preliminary examination in good time to allow them enough time to read the latest version of the dissertation and start agreeing on the preliminary examiners.
  • When you resubmit a dissertation for examination, please include a written report on the key revisions made to the manuscript after the previous examination round.

Layout of the manuscript

All manuscripts are to be submitted for examination as a PDF file. Possible separate files must be combined as one PDF file (if you have any problem with this, we will help you). 

The faculty has not issued guidelines regarding the format of the dissertation manuscript. The doctoral candidate is therefore free to use his or her own judgement, but ease of reading and handling are good principles to keep in mind. The following information should always be presented on the cover page of a dissertation manuscript: title of the dissertation, the name of the doctoral candidate, and the name of the doctoral programme.

At the preliminary examination stage, the recommended font size for the manuscript is 12 and line spacing 1.5–2. Margins should be wide enough for the examiners to be able to print out the dissertation and make notes in the margin easily if they so wish.

Doctoral dissertation manuscripts must include a one- to two-page Finnish-, Swedish- or English-language abstract after the title page. There is no separate form for the abstract; you can choose to write it the way you want. However, the abstract must include the topic of the research, the methodology used and the most significant results. The information must be presented in text form (no formulae, special symbols or figures).

Dates for submission of dissertation and Faculty Council meeting dates

Spring term 2024

Submission of dissertation
at the latest
Faculty Council
meeting dates
Monday Tuesday
15.1.2024
12.2.2024
11.3.2024
8.4.2024
13.5.2024
27.5.2024
30.1.2024
27.2.2024
26.3.2024
23.4.2024
28.5.2024
11.6.2024

Autumn term 2024

Submission of dissertation
at the latest
Faculty Council
meeting dates
Monday Tuesday
19.8.2024
9.9.2024
14.10.2024
11.11.2024
25.11.2024
3.9.2024
24.9.2024
29.10.2024
26.11.2024
10.12.2024

Spring term 2025

Submission of dissertation
at the latest
Faculty Council
meeting dates
Monday Tuesday
7.1.2025 (Tuesday)
27.1.2025
24.2.2025
24.3.2025
22.4.2025 (Tuesday)
26.5.2025
21.1.2025
11.2.2025
11.3.2025
8.4.2025
6.5.2025
10.6.2025

What happens next?

  • The preliminary examiners will be given two months to give their statement (three months during the summer to account for summer holidays).
  • Once we have sent the manuscript to the examiners, we will inform you of the exact date the statements are expected to arrive.
  • If the statements are delayed, we will take care of reminding the examiners. If you do not receive the statements in time, you can always ask after them from us.
  • The preliminary examiners will send their statements directly to the faculties – not the student, the student’s coordinating academic or the supervisor – within two months. Once we have received both statements, we will provide you, your supervisors and coordinating academic with copies of them as soon as possible.
  • You have a right to lodge an objection to the preliminary examiners’ statements with the Faculty Council before it decides on granting permission to defend the dissertation in a public examination. We will provide you with more detailed instructions on how to do so when we send the statements to you.
  • If the preliminary examiners in their statements recommend that permission to defend the dissertation in a public examination be granted, we will ask your coordinating academic and supervisors to make proposals on the members of the grading committee (opponent, custos and faculty representative(s)).
  • The aim is to expedite the process of granting permission to defend the dissertation by the Faculty Council – we will inform you of the timetable for deciding to grant permission to defend the dissertation in a public examination when we return the statements to you.

What if the preliminary examination statements are negative?

  • If one or both examiners give a negative statement, the preliminary examination process is cancelled as a rule. A cancelled examination process may be relaunched once you have made the required revisions to the manuscript and the supervisors and the coordinating academic recommend relaunching the examination.
  • At its discretion, the Faculty may ask the same or different preliminary examiners to perform the examination. As a rule, the recommendation is that at least one of the first-round examiners is appointed to the task also on the second examination round.
  • The second examination round proceeds as the first, and the revised manuscript must be submitted for examination following the same instructions and timetables.
  • If your receive a negative statement, do not be too worried – it is usually just an indication that the dissertation has been submitted to preliminary examination prematurely and still requires some revising.