Faculty of Educational Sciences: submitting the doctoral thesis

• You must have permission from the coordinating academic and the main supervisor to submit a doctoral thesis for preliminary examination. You should agree on submitting the thesis for examination with your coordinating academic well in advance, since they will need some time to make a proposal on the preliminary examiners to the Faculty.
• The doctoral candidate is responsible for the content of the doctoral submitted for preliminary examination. The supervisor(s) are responsible for ensuring that the quality and content of the doctoral thesis meets the criteria for the preliminary examination. The doctoral candidate is responsible for ensuring that the language of the doctoral thesis fulfills academic publishing standards. For doctoral thesis written in a language other than the doctoral candidate's native language, it is recommended that the thesis language be revised by a native speaker. The main supervisor may decide to forego language revision.
• It is the duty of the supervisors to ensure that the doctoral thesis manuscript submitted for the preliminary examination is structurally consistent, its language is clear and correct, and that it fulfils the general requirements set for doctoral thesis; please see Criteria for Doctoral Thesis at the Faculty of Educational Sciences.
• The doctoral student must be registered as an attending student at the University throughout the entire examination of the dissertation or thesis.

The manuscript must be submitted at the Faculty no later than two weeks before a Faculty Council meeting (see dates for submission below). However, this does not mean that it will be possible to immediately appoint the preliminary examiners for the manuscript at the next meeting. Notify the Faculty Doctoral Student Services edu-research@helsinki.fi about your intention to submit a doctoral thesis for preliminary examination.

Required documents

• Complete an electronic form with your information and save the form.
• Send the doctoral dissertation as a single PDF file to edu-research@helsinki.fi. The manuscript must include abstracts in Finnish and English. In the case of an article-based dissertation, the file must include a summarising report and original articles. The file is named: lastname_dis.pdf. It is possible to use PDF-Xchange Tools or PDF-Xchange Editor programmes installed on University workstations to compile the materials. If the manuscript is too large to be sent by email, please use Funet Filesender.
• At the same time, submit a report on the share of independent work, which must be signed by the supervisors and  coordinating academic. The supervisors can also submit their approval of the report to edu-research@helsinki.fi. This report should be written in the language used in the study. Instructions for drawing up a report on independent contribution can be found in the e-form and Report on the independent contribution to a doctoral thesis (pdf).

Proposal on preliminary examiners

The coordinating academic makes a proposal on the preliminary examiners to the Faculty Council using the electronic Proposal for the appointment of preliminary examiners -form.

At the form, the coordinating academic confirms that the doctoral thesis manuscript submitted for the preliminary examination fulfills the general requirements set for doctoral thesis. The coordinating academic will also provide a brief separate reasoned argument on the selection of a preliminary examiner.

Autumn term 2025

Spring term 2026

The preliminary examiners will evaluate the doctoral thesis manuscript in their statements based on the doctoral thesis assesment criteria at the Faculty of Educational Sciences. Preliminary examiners are given four weeks to give their statements, taking into account the holiday periods.

Take these things into account about the preliminary examination process:

• Once we have sent the manuscript to the preliminary examiners, we will inform you of the exact date the statements are expected to arrive. At the same time, we will provide you with instructions for doctoral researchers regarding the preliminary examination process.
• 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 doctoral candidate, the doctoral candidate’s coordinating academic or the supervisor – within four weeks. 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 submit comments to the preliminary examiners’ statements to the Faculty Council before it decides on granting permission to defend the doctoral thesis in a public examination.
• If the preliminary examiners in their statements approve the granting of permission to defend the doctoral thesis in a public examination, 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 doctoral thesis 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.

Before you are granted permission to defend your doctoral thesis in public examination, the following matters have to be in order:

1. Two favourable statements related to the examination of the doctoral thesis manuscript have been received by the Faculty, and the author of the thesis has approved them.
2. All doctoral studies must be completed and registered as study modules in Sisu before permission to defend the doctoral thesis in a public examination can be granted. Instructions for registering studies and compiling study modules can be found on the registration of doctoral studies page. You will find the studies required for your degree on the instruction page Scope and structure of the doctoral degrees, after selecting your own doctoral program from the top menu of the page.

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 favour relaunching the examination. The Faculty Council will be notified of cancelled preliminary examination processes.

In the event of cancellation of the preliminary examination, the doctoral candidate may request a new examination once the changes recommended in the preliminary examiners’ statements, or other changes, have been made in the doctoral thesis manuscript and the supervisors and the coordinating academic recommend that the preliminary examination procedure be restarted.

Concerning preliminary examinations that have been launched at spring term 2025, a preliminary examiner may also require corrections to be done to the manuscript, which the preliminary examiner will have to approve before giving a favourable statement. After approving the corrections, the preliminary examiner will give their final statement on the manuscript to the Faculty. The report drawn up by the doctoral researcher on the corrections made will also be delivered for information to the other preliminary examiner and appended to the preliminary examiners’ statements when granting permission to defend the dissertation in a public examination. In this case, the preliminary examination process may last no more than six months. Even in this case, preliminary examiners are not considered equivalent to the supervisor.