If the committee’s assessment of your PhD dissertation is positive, the dissertation is accepted for public defence.
The defence must take place no later than three months after submission of the PhD dissertation. The date for the defence is agreed with the assessment committee at the time it is composed.
The date of defence can be postponed if necessary due to special circumstances, for example to protect intellectual property rights.
The defence should take place in Aarhus, and you are responsible for booking the room and ordering catering, if applicable. If the defence is held outside Aarhus, please be aware that GSH does not cover travel and accommodation expenses to supervisors and the chair.
The defence should be in English and is a public ceremony that can be attended by anyone, and the defence should therefore be publicly announced, just as the dissertation needs to be available to the public in reasonable time before the defence, cf. the PhD order §19 (2).
For access to the dissertation before the defence, the graduate school refers to the PhD student. In order to avoid the risk of (self-)plagiarism, please be aware, not to make your dissertation public available online (e.g. via PURE) if it includes unpublished articles and results.
The defence should be in English and is a public ceremony that can be attended by anyone. The defence is chaired by the chair of the assessment committee and the defence must be conducted in accordance with the provisions specified in the PhD order.
The course of events at the defence is as follows:
Immediately after the defence, the assessment committee makes a recommendation to the Academic Council as to whether the PhD degree should be awarded.
The PhD degree is awarded if the assessment committee finds that the PhD education and the defence have been completed in a satisfactory manner, cf. §3 of the PhD Order. The recommendation must include an overall assessment of both the dissertation and the defence.
On the basis of the final recommendation, one of the following decisions can be made:
The graduate school forwards the final decision to the author together with the PhD diplomas.
If you choose to conduct your PhD defence partly online, we recommend you use Zoom. If you are more comfortable using one of the other AU-supported platforms, you are of course welcome to do so.
Aarhus University has licenses for the following platforms and can provide IT-support if needed.
Platform/system | Breakout within meeting | Recording | Screen sharing | Notes, chat, Whiteboard | Video conference | Login |
Zoom | x | x | x | x | x | Zoom login |
Microsoft Teams | x | x | x | x | Teams login |
Please read the guides and FAQ’s carefully (links in table).
If you have any questions regarding functionality and setup of the system, please contact your local IT-support for technical support.
If you plan to conduct your PhD defence at AUH please be aware, that Health IT-support has limited access to provide technical support. In this case, we recommend that you contact the local IT-support at AUH.
All PhD defences must be publicly available. If you conduct your defence online, please make sure to include a link to the defence in the press release, or add a name and e-mail address on a person who can send interested parties a link for the defence.