Completion of your PhD

An example of the structure you can follow can be found here.

Once you have combined your thesis according to the template, you must send an application to have the thesis assessed, the thesis, and all required attachments, to the School of Doctoral Studies via Nettskjema. The link will be sent to you by the PhD coordinator upon request.

The application must contain:

• Information about when and where the work has been carried out
• Names of main and co- supervisors
• Confirmation of whether the work is being submitted for the first or the second time, and that it has not been submitted at another institution
• If the thesis is article based you must provide details on the status on each article, including publication channel, date of submission and current status (accepted, minor revision, major revision, reject).
  
  

The required attachments are:

• Proof of completed course component
• Declaration of collection of all necessary approvals and licenses and a copy of any approvals and licenses obtained
• Interview guides
• Co-Author declarations
  
  

In your Cover Article you must include a summary of the thesis both in English and in Norwegian. This summary should be about 800 words.

The thesis should be combined and made into a single pdf. file according to the provided thesis structure. Once you have submitted your thesis, the PhD coordinator will send you information about the selected assessment committee. You then have one week to comment on the selection.

You will likely wish to write acknowledgements as well. This will be added to the thesis before the final printing, after the assessment committee has approved the thesis.

After submission of your thesis, you have limited opportunities to make changes before printing, because the printed manuscript must be the same as the one submitted to the assessment committee. 

• After submission, you can apply for permission to correct formal/technical errors in the thesis before it is printed. The application must be accompanied by a complete overview of the errors (errata form) that are to be corrected within the scope of:
• specific corrections of formal/technical errors such as layout, typographic errors, language errors, missing punctations or missing or superfluous references are permitted in order to make the text coherent or linguistically correct.
• no substantial changes are permitted.
• clarification of meaning in the text is not permitted.
• An application for correction of formal errors must be submitted to the PhD coordinator no later than four weeks before the committee's deadline for submitting its recommendation.
• It is the submitted thesis that will be assessed and form the basis of your public defense.
• The errata must be approved by the Head of Program before it is sent to the chair of the assessment committee for final approval.
• An application for approval of errata can only be submitted once.
• You will be allowed to make the approved corrections in the text, in addition the errata list will be added as an attachment to the thesis.
  
  

The template for the errata list can be found here.

The assessment committee has got three (3) months to perform their assessment and write a final recommendation to the Doctoral Degree Committee. Please note that July, and the last half of December are not considered working months/weeks, and thus will not be included in the allotted assessment time.

The outcome of the assessment will be one of three possible:

1. A "green light". The committee has completed their assessment and found that the thesis is worthy of defense, and reccomends that the candidate be allowed to move forward with the trial lecture and public defense.
   
   
2. A "yellow light". The committee has completed their assessment, but have found that some changes must be made to the thesis before it can be deemed worthy of defense. A description of the suggested changes is included with the recommendation, and the candidate is given up to three months to revise and resubmit the thesis.
   
   
3. A "red light". The committee has completed their assessment and found that the thesis is not deemed worthy of defense, and that substantial changes must be made. The thesis is not approved.
   In this case the candidate is allowed to resubmit the reworked thesis no earlier than six (6) months after receiving the recommendation.

Once a recommendation has been made, you have up to 10 working days to submit written comments to the recommendation.  If you do not wish to submit written comments, please give notice of this as quickly as possible. If the recommendation is positive and unanimous, there will rarely be cause to submit comments.

On the day of the defense, you will hold the trial lecture first. This lecture should take approximately 45 minutes.
After the trial lecture there will be a break before the official public defense starts, where the assessment committee evaluates the trial lecture. The result will be announced before the defense can begin.

Once the result has been announced and the leader of the defense has started the session, you must give a 30 minute presentation of your thesis. Here you must describe the results of the scientific thesis and place the thesis in a greater academic perspective. 
This is followed by discussions with the first and the second opponent. This part of the defense will last approximately three (3) hours, including a fifteen-minute break between the two opponents.

The first opponent begins the opposition and raises specific points of discussion or objection in the thesis to which you are expected to respond. The public defense should be an academic discussion between the opponents and you on the formulation of research questions, methodology, empirical and theoretical bases, documentation, and form of presentation. Particular emphasis is placed on testing the validity of the main conclusions of your thesis.

The questions the opponents choose to pursue are not necessarily limited to those mentioned in the committee’s recommendation. The opponents should seek to give the discussion a form that allows those unfamiliar with the content of the thesis or the subject area to follow the discussion.

The defense chair may invite other people present at the defense to take part in the discussion ex auditorio once the ordinary opponents have concluded their opposition. The defense chair will conclude the public defense and declare the public defense closed. The committee’s evaluation of the public defense will be given as a separate report.
The assessment committee may choose to announce the result of the defense after a discussion following the closing of the defense.

You should be aware that you have the right to apply for paid leave of absence up to two weeks before the defense in order to prepare your trial lecture and presentation of your thesis.

It is customary to invite family and friends, as well as your supervisors and the chair of the defense.

This dinner is paid by the PhD candidate. There are no sources of funding for this, and it is not possible to use any remaining operational funds for this dinner. Because of the cost, it is perfectly acceptable to forego this event. 

The PhD conferral ceremony is a formal ceremony for everyone who has attained a PhD after completing their researcher education at Kristiania University College. The ceremony is arranged once a year.

The rector leads the ceremony and a main speech is given to the new doctors. He/she will give a short presentation of your thesis and you will receive your PhD diploma.

The university college will send you an invitation to the PhD conferral ceremony and you are welcome to invite your closest family and friends to the event.

If you cannot attend, your diploma will be sent to your private address after the conferral ceremony.  

Even if the diploma has not yet been issued, a PhD degree is valid from the day of submission, provided the assessment committee approves the thesis.

1. You are enrolled in a PhD programme at Kristiania or at an external institution
2. You are in the process of applying for admission to a PhD programme at Kristiania
3. You are employed at Kristiania University College and minimum hold a masters’ degree.

 
For applicants outside Kristiania (external applicants are candidates that are neither employed nor enrolled at a PhD program at Kristiania): You must complete and upload the form Application form for external candidates to attend PhD courses which you will find here.  

You must also upload a signed confirmation from your PhD programme stating that you are an active PhD candidate at your programme and institution.

Application for external candidates: please apply through Søknadsweb

You can find an overview of courses on the webpage of the different PhD programmes under electable courses in addition to the joint PhD course Research, Ethics and Society (RES9100)

Here are the PhD courses offered at Kristiania autumn 2024:

PCL9205 - Communication and Leadership in Health Care

• Teaching dates: September 3, 4, 9 and 10, 2024
• Deadline for applying: August 3, 2024

 
PCL9202 - Contemporary Issues in Communication and Leadership

• Teaching dates: September 17. and 18. and October 9., 2024
• Deadline for applying: August 17, 2024 

RES9100 - Research ethics and society

• Teaching dates: Every Thursday October 3 - December 5, 2024
• Deadline for applying: September 3, 2024

 
PCL9206 - Practical and Critical Perspectives on Leadership 

• Teaching dates: October 7 - 8 and December 5 - 6, 2024
• Deadline for applying: September 7               

PCL9203 – Digital Media & Political communication

• Teaching dates: October 30, November 6, 13, 20 and 27, 2024
• Deadline for applying: September 30, 2024

 
PIT9209 - Qualitative Research Methods

• Teaching dates: November 7 - 8 and 28 - 29, 2024
• Deadline for applying: October 7, 2024

PIT9204 - Data Analytics for Business

• Teaching dates: December 2 - 5, 2024
• Deadline for applying: November 2, 2024.

If a low number of students are signed up for a course, it may be cancelled or offered as a reading course with one start-up lecture and supervision.

If you have any inquiries, do not hesitate to contact us at phd-studies@kristiania.no

• Templates for PhD

• Regulations on the degree of philosophiae doctor (PhD) at Kristiania University College