Faculty of Veterinary Medicine: submitting the doctoral thesis

The Faculty Council appoints two preliminary examiners and grading committee for the thesis manuscript. The proposal on the preliminary examiners and grading committee is made by the coordinating academic. The proposal must be approved by the doctoral candidate. At the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, the preliminary examiner proposals are processed in a meeting of the Research Committee prior to the Faculty Council. Meeting timetables are decided on a yearly basis.

Research Committee meeting timetables and deadlines for material submission on Flamma (requires logging in)

Meeting times of the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine on Flamma (requires logging in).

The impartiality of the preliminary examiners and opponent will be verified at Viikki doctoral study services. The senior advisor acting as the presenting official will prepare the matter for the agendas of the Committee for Research and Research-oriented Doctoral Education and the Faculty Council. You may acquaint yourself with the dissertation requirements and preliminary examiner qualification requirements on the website of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

For the purpose of appointing the preliminary examiners, the doctoral candidate must submit a dissertation manuscript with the documents listed below to Viikki doctoral study services at viikki-phd@helsinki.fi.

1. The dissertation manuscript in one PDF file. The manuscript includes a summarising report and the component articles of the dissertation. Should the file be too large to send by email, the doctoral candidate can send it, for example, with Funet FileSender.

2. A list of the component articles of the dissertation, which may include the following document:

3. A report on the division of labour for all co-authored component articles. The division of labour between the authors must be explained briefly in such a way that it is possible for the preliminary examiners and the Faculty Council to assess the sufficiency of the doctoral candidate’s independent scientific contribution to the dissertation. The report on the division of labour is to be signed by the doctoral candidate and the main supervisor. It is possible to include the same co-authored publication in more than one dissertation, so the report on the division of labour must include information on whether the publication has been used or will be used in another dissertation. If the preliminary examiners are not proficient in Finnish, the report must be written in English.

4. A written notice of the receipt or notice of acceptance of the article from the publishing journal must be included for unpublished manuscripts included in dissertation.

5. Animal experiment licence (when needed)

6. Theoretical studies, i.e. Discipline-specific studies -module and Transferable skills -module, must be completed and registered in Sisu before the pre-examination process can be started. The instructions are on the web-page Registration of doctoral studies. You can find the degree structure and required studies on the page Scope and structure of doctoral degrees. Note, choose your own doctoral programme from the site's degree programme menu.

7. The coordinating academic makes a proposal on the preliminary examiners and grading committee using the electronic Proposal for the preliminary examiners and grading committee form. Coordinating academic and doctoral student confirm the proposal via e-mail. Further information about the preliminary examiners’ qualifications is available at the website of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

NB! The language revision is not obligatory before pre-examination.

The doctoral candidate has the responsibility to see to it that the language of the dissertation fulfils academic publishing standards. It is recommended that you submit your dissertation for language revision if you have written the dissertation in a language other than your native language.  However, your supervisor may decide that language revision is unnecessary, if the language in your thesis is good. 

The Language Services recommend that the language revision is done after the preliminary examiners have submitted their statements. However, if you are unsure of the adequate quality of the language in the manuscript, the language revision can be done before submitting the manuscript for preliminary examination.

Once the preliminary examiner and grading committee have been appointed, the presenting official will provide the preliminary examiners with preliminary examination instructions and will inform the doctoral candidate and the coordinating academic about the appointment of the preliminary examiners.

The time limit for the preliminary examination is four weeks. The doctoral candidate has an opportunity to object to the preliminary examiners’ statements. You may acquaint yourself with the general guidelines pertaining to doctoral dissertations and the instruction given to examiners on the website of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

The preliminary examiners will be given approximately four weeks from the Faculty Council meeting where the preliminary examination process was launched to give their statements. The below table gives the deadlines for preliminary examiner statements to ensure that the issue of granting permission to defend the dissertation in a public examination can be processed in the next possible Dean’s Decision. If the statement does not arrive by the deadline, the processing of the issue will be delayed to the next possible deadline. The doctoral study services will send you e-mail when your issue is proceed.

AUTUMN PERIOD 2025