The University of Oulu Graduate School may approve an applicant for doctoral education, when:

• The applicant has completed a relevant Master of Science degree, or an equivalent degree giving eligibility for corresponding university studies in the country.
  The Doctoral Training Committee evaluates the validity of the previous degree for doctoral training, taking into account the major skills required. If the applicant plans to undertake doctoral studies in any other field, he/she may be required to follow bridging studies considered necessary to start in the chosen major subject. The Doctoral Training Committee approves the bridging studies curriculum proposed by the appointed representive of the major subject and the principal supervisor.

• The above-mentioned degree must have been completed with good grades (at least 60% of maximum grade, or 3/5, in both taught studies and the Master’s thesis)
  In exceptional cases where the applicant's grades obtained for the Master's degree (or equivalent) do not meet the requirements for admission to UniOGS, it may be possible to compensate for the insufficient grades. The procedure for this can be found here.
• The applicant must possess sufficient language skills.
  The teaching languages ​​at the University of Oulu are Finnish and English. All students, who have not completed a secondary or higher education degree in the Finnish language, must demonstrate that they possess English and/or Finnish language skills that are sufficient to follow doctoral studies.
• Each doctoral student must have a principal supervisor. Each student is responsible for finding an appropriate principal supervisor at the University of Oulu. Without a supervisor and his/her commitment letter, the study rights cannot be granted. The applicant and the principal supervisor must ensure that the research site has all needed resources (supervision and other resources) for applicant’s doctoral training.

An applicant with a Bachelor’s degree may be admitted to the Graduate School to undertake doctoral studies, if:

• the applicant already has doctoral study rights in a foreign university and the studies at the University of Oulu will lead to a double or joint doctoral degree,
• the applicant has at least a Bachelor of Medicine, is a student of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oulu, and is doing research in a research group (full admission is conditional and requires the completion of the licentiate degree with good grades).

All students applying for admission to the Graduate School must fill in and submit the application form and provide all the requested support documents.

The next deadlines for submission of applications are 31.3.2013, 15.5.2013, 31.8.2013 and 31.10.2013. After the deadline, it may take about 2 months to get the study rights. For special reasons, applications may be submitted and processed at other times. The application instructions and forms can be downloaded from here.