The assessment committee assesses the academic quality of the PhD dissertation in question. Prior to the submission of a dissertation, the main supervisor and the management of the Graduate School of Health have ensured that the PhD process has been satisfactory and that all formal requirements have been met. It is the responsibility of the chair of the committee to keep the other members informed about procedures, deadlines and practical matters, including travel arrangements and accommodation in connection with the publicdefence.
As stated in the Executive Order of 25 March 2013 regarding PhD programmes at universities, the PhD degree programme trains PhD students to undertake research, development and teaching assignments at an international level. The PhD degree programme concludes with a submission of a PhD dissertation which must document the PhD student’s/author’s ability to apply relevant research methods and to conduct research work meeting the international standards for PhD degrees within the field in question.
The Graduate School of Health recommends that the PhD dissertation consists of a review and a number of papers, based on original data from the PhD project, equal to 3 years of scientific work. The papers should either be published in international journals, accepted for publication in international journals, submitted for publication in international journals or available in manuscript form ready for submission to international journals or in preparation. This corresponds to the international level required in the field of health sciences. The PhD student must usually be first author of the papers.
Co-author declarations must be included for each contribution where the submitted PhD dissertation includes work by several authors. First- and last author, main supervisor and the PhD student must sign the declaration, in which is should be indicated whether the paper in question has previously been included in a thesis or a PhD dissertation.
The review (30-50 pages) should normally contain the following:
The review can also be a review article in which the student’s own findings are incorporated on a par with present literature in the field. The review article should be supplemented by a chapter on the methodologies used (approx. 10 pages). The review article must be published or submitted for publication in an international journal, and the PhD student must be the sole author.
If the PhD student would like additional material to be assessed, such material can be incorporated as a separate chapter in the review or attached as an appendix.
The assessment committee must assess whether the dissertation complies with the abovementioned international standards in the field of health sciences, and the number of papers required will therefore depend on the quality of the papers, the author’s share in the individual works and the scope of the review.
Very occasionally the research carried out has not resulted in manuscripts or published papers. In such cases the PhD dissertation should be submitted in the form of a monograph. The monograph should be approx. 100 pages with the following format:
In the PhD dissertation it must be indicated how the monograph will be published as a scientific work in the usual international tradition within the specific discipline.
The dissertation must be written in English. In exceptional cases, the dissertation can be in Danish if the student has applied for and been granted exemption.
The dissertation is screened for duplicate text. After submission it is therefore not possible to make any changes to the wording, correction of spelling mistakes or replace papers in manuscript form with published articles etc. The submitted dissertation is the final version.
The standard scope of an assessment is about 6-8 pages and a specific form is used (the form can be found on this page). The assessment should reach the Graduate School of Health no later than six weeks before the public defence in order for the public defence to take place at the agreed upon date.
It is the responsibility of the chair of the committee to divide the work among the members of the assessment committee and to integrate the individual contributions so that the assessment forms a whole without inconsistencies in style or opinions (e.g. use 'we' instead of 'I'). For this reason appendices to the assessment will not be accepted.
The assessment must be approved by the Head of the Graduate School of Health before the public defence can take place. The chair of the committee is contacted in case the assessment is found to need elaboration or clarification. The form used for the assessment follows the following format:
The assessment begins with a description of certain formal requirements:
The content of the dissertation – number of pages, tables, papers etc. – is described by completing the pre-printed paragraph.
The scope of the dissertation should be briefly outlined; what is the purpose, why, who is it aimed at, what are the boundaries of the study, what is included and what is not?
It should not be a summary, but a short description of the range or span of the dissertation.
The co-author declarations must be described, and the assessment must evaluate whether the work involved in the dissertation was carried out by the PhD student. If co-author declarations are missing or inadequate, the Graduate School of Health must immediately be contacted, as these declarations must be available before the dissertation can be assessed.
In assessing the review the following questions should be addressed:
Consideration must be taken as to whether the review forms a logical part of the dissertation as a whole. Finally, language and presentation skills can be commented on, if necessary.
The assessment of each paper should begin with a full title, list of authors and status of the paper ("published” (journal, year, volume and page numbers), "accepted", "submitted" or "in preparation"). The following questions should then be addressed:
A mere summary of the paper is not sufficient, as the aim is to achieve a critical assessment on a par with an assessment of a manuscript by international referees.
On the basis of the above-mentioned criteria, the assessment should reach a conclusion that states whether or not the dissertation complies with the international standard for PhD dissertations in the field of health sciences. The assessment committee can recommend that the dissertation should:
It is important that the conclusion is in line with the rest of the assessment regarding both criticism and praise. In case of disagreement, the recommendation is based on the majority opinion.
The assessment must be signed by all members of the committee.
There are three possible outcomes of the assessment of a dissertation:
If the recommendation is positive, the PhD student will receive an e-mail with the assessment attached and the defence of the dissertation can take place.
If the assessment committee recommends revision of the dissertation, the PhD student needs to submit a new, revised dissertation together with a point-by point reply where he/she comments on the assessment committee's remarks.
The author will get at least 3 months to submit a revised dissertation (with the possibility of an earlier resubmission to maintain the original date for public defence) The deadline must be stated in the conclusion of the assessment.
The graduate school needs to receive any comments to the assessment committee’s decision no later than two weeks after the date where the PhD student received the assessment.
Unless special conditions apply, the same assessment committee will reassess the dissertation. The new assessment consists of a free text assessment of the revised dissertation stating the background, a listing of the changes made as well as an assessment of these changes and a recommendation as to whether the dissertation can now be accepted for public defence.
The new assessment must be signed by all members of the committee and should reach the Graduate School of Health no later than six weeks after the resubmission.
If the committee finds that the academic level in the revised dissertation complies with the international standard for PhD dissertations in the field of health sciences, the defence can take place, and the PhD student and the assessment committee need to agree on a new date for the defence.
The public defence is based on the revised dissertation, and the printed version must also be based on the revised dissertation.
Recommended revision of revised dissertation (second revision)
If the assessment committee finds that the academic level in the revised dissertation does not comply with the international standard for PhD dissertations in the field of health sciences, but can be accepted with minor adjustments, the committee can recommend the dissertation for a second revision.
If the assessment committee finds that the academic level in the original dissertation does not comply with the international standard for PhD dissertations in the field of health sciences, and that the quality of the dissertation is below an adequate level for acceptance, the assessment committee should recommend the dissertation for rejection.
If the assessment committee recommends rejecting the dissertation, the graduate school needs to receive any comments on the assessment committee’s decision no later than two weeks after the date where the PhD student received the assessment.
The graduate school management will review the assessment committee’s recommendation, including any comments from the main supervisor and PhD student.
The management then makes the final decision on whether the PhD student is asked to resubmit the PhD dissertation to the assessment committee, resubmit to a new assessment committee or whether the dissertation is rejected completely.
If the dissertation is in fact rejected, the PhD student will be disenrolled from the PhD programme without obtaining a degree.
The public defence should take place within three months of submission of the dissertation. It consists of a lecture by the PhD student followed by an examination by the assessment committee. The lecture normally takes 45 minutes and should cover subjects dealt with in the dissertation. If the assessment committee recommends a title for the lecture other than the title of the dissertation, the PhD student and the Graduate School of Health are informed. The subsequent examination must comprise an in-depth discussion and critical analysis of selected parts of the dissertation and the lecture. The examination is expected to take at least 1 hour, but is often longer. The audience subsequently has an opportunity to ask the PhD student questions.
Following the examination the assessment committee convenes in a separate room in order to discuss and evaluate the defence and sign the recommendation that the PhD degree should be awarded.Within a week of the defence, the chair of the committee sends a signed assessment of the public defence to the Graduate School of Health based on the discussion with the other members of the committee and using a specific form.
If the recommendation is that the PhD degree should not be awarded, a letter stating the reasons and signed by all members of the assessment committee should be sent to the Graduate School of Health as soon as possible.
