All doctoral students must have a principal supervisor, who is responsible for guiding the student throughout the doctoral training. The principal supervisor must be a professor or a docent or a person with equivalent competence, as evaluated by an external review process. Students can have one or two co-supervisors if needed. Co-supervisors may be post-doctoral scientists, or higher. At least one of the supervisors must work at the University of Oulu, or be a docent at the University of Oulu. If none of the supervisors are employees of the University of Oulu, a professor of the major subject, will be nominated as the degree supervisor. The student takes contact with the principal supervisor when planning his/her doctoral studies and, together, they decide on the supervision arrangements before applying for admission to UniOGS. The principal supervisor must ensure the availability of the resources necessary for the student’s doctoral studies at the research site(s). The relevant Doctoral Training Committee formally appoints the supervisors for each student when the doctoral study rights are granted. All changes in the arrangements for the supervision must be approved by the Doctoral Training Committee.

The supervisors must reserve sufficient time for each of his/her doctoral students, ensuring that each of them receives the necessary help and support, both for the planning, and for the implementation of their studies and research, and when writing the doctoral thesis. The supervisor(s) and the student must be committed to the completion of the degree within a time equivalent to four years of full-time study (the time may be adjusted for part-time students). The principal supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the student submits and presents his/her full doctoral training plan within one year following admission to UniOGS, and that the planned schedule is implemented.

In special cases, the supervisor can be changed during the doctoral training process. The chair of the Doctoral training committee can nominate the new supervisor. Please, use this form for proposing new supervisors: Proposals for new supervisors - form.

Presentations for 11th April 2013 and 12th Dec 2012 organised Seminar for doctoral thesis supervisors can be found here.