Center for Postgraduate Studies Center for Postgraduate Studies

We'll support you in making this decision with our workshop 'Doctoral studies – Are they right for me?' and with individual advising through the Graduate Centre.

Your PhD topic should ideally be in an area that you are adequately qualified to study and which interests you. You should decide on it in coordination with relevant researchers and your potential supervisors.

In principle, every professor at HAW Hamburg can supervise a PhD. Because the professors have highly varied and individual research areas, it is important for your search that you have a clear research question and research goals for your own PhD. Please contact the instructors who you think would be suitable supervisors for your dissertation directly. The Graduate Centre team can support you in getting in touch with them.

The search for and agreement on a supervisor at the respective cooperating university is generally supported by the supervisors at HAW Hamburg.

If you have questions about undertaking PhD studies, the HAW Hamburg Graduate Centre team is available to help you!

Academically oriented Master's courses teach skills and content that are essential to the successful completion of doctoral studies. For this reason, it is highly advisable to have completed a suitable Master's degree before starting a doctoral programme.

While a Diplom degree does entitle you to undertake doctoral studies under certain conditions, it is again Master's courses that provide the key skills necessary for successful doctoral studies. In any case, it is the doctoral studies regulations of the university awarding the doctoral degree which are decisive in this regard.

The formal requirements are determined by the individual doctoral studies regulations of the universities entitled to grant PhDs. Experience shows that in addition to these legal requirements, the following criteria in particular should be met:

• A university degree completed quickly and with very good grades
• Motivation to carry out research
• Ideally, initial experience carrying out academic work
• Qualification and research interests that align with the supervisor's research area
• An academic/work history demonstrating academic interest; a readiness and ability to motivate yourself to perform at a high level over a longer period of time

Foreign universities require that a PhD be completed in the official country language or in English.

Very good English skills are generally recommended even in the case of German PhDs undertaken in cooperation with German universities.

We recommend the ongoing development of your English skills parallel to your PhD studies. A regular English course for doctoral students is offered by the HAW Hamburg Graduate Centre.

In general, cooperations are possible with any university around the world that is entitled to award PhDs.

Cooperation between HAW Hamburg and the PhD-awarding university is generally managed on an individual basis for each doctoral student. Specific rules apply as part of the formal cooperation agreements.

The doctoral studies regulations of the university entitled to award the PhD and the relevant bodies and committees at that university decide on students' admission to doctoral studies. Without this admission, HAW Hamburg cannot provide supervision.

Ideally, we would like doctoral students to officially enrol at HAW Hamburg. It is possible to enrol at both the supervising university AND HAW Hamburg.

By enrolling, you become a member of the university and enjoy corresponding insurance coverage. You also receive a semester ticket valid for travel on buses, the underground, S-Bahn city trains, and local and regional trains in the fare rings A to Z of the HVV transport authority area. If you do not need this ticket, you can apply to be freed from paying the associated fees if you meet certain conditions.

The answer to this question depends first on the conditions outlined in the specific doctoral studies regulation. Generally, the application process will need to be repeated. A change in the topic or supervision should be discussed as early as possible with the supervisors.

The costs of undertaking doctoral studies are as individual as the individual projects. Even if your studies are primarily financed through a paid position as part of a research project, there are often additional costs that are not covered by project or university funding.

You should plan for the following costs when completing your PhD:

Semester contribution at the university entitled to award the PhD – The requirement to enrol and the contribution amount are determined by the individual universities themselves, which means we cannot list a specific amount here.

+ (In most cases) HAW Hamburg semester contribution: €379.00 per semester (as of winter semester 2023/24)

+ Literature, software, etc.

+ Travel costs for conferences or meetings with supervisors

You should also take into account that working full-time while completing doctoral studies is only possible in exceptional cases.

There are various ways to finance your doctoral studies. In many cases, doctoral students take on paid positions as part of a research project or research facility. Additionally, a range of different funding institutions provide various types of scholarships.

Detailed information about funding possibilities for doctoral studies is available on the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's page Research in Germany. Funding information with a specific focus on students located in Hamburg is available from our partner the Hamburg Research Academy.  

The Stifterverband provides an overview (in German) of funding opportunities provided by foundations. Our partner ApplicAid provides advising and information about applying for scholarships from foundations. 

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has compiled information (in German) about funding opportunities for exceptional students on the Begabtenförderungswerke page.   

In addition to comprehensive scholarships, it is also possible to obtain scholarships to cover travel to conferences, stays abroad, research literature, etc. Some scholarship providers also offer transitional scholarships – for example, for one year – to help students get oriented as they begin their doctoral studies or move into the post-doc phase.

We regularly provide information about current funding options to HAW Hamburg doctoral students and members in the Graduate Centre newsletter. There are also conferences and events where funders present their funding lines specifically for doctoral students and post-docs. For example, the Universität Hamburg regularly holds the Research Funding Day, which is open to anyone interested, and the European Liaison Office of the German Research Organisations (KoWi) holds the Research in Europe event, which is free of charge, at various universities in Germany two times per year. The latter organisation also provides direct links to funders on its website. The large variety of funding options means that doing your own research on potential funders is definitely worthwhile!

For travel to trade fairs and conferences in other countries or stays abroad, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is a good option. It is important to keep in mind that these applications often need to be submitted well in advance – the current deadline for conference travel is at least three months prior to travel (as of June 2023). If you are submitting DAAD or ERASMUS applications, please confirm in advance with the International Office that HAW Hamburg supports the administration of these funding options. This is not possible for all funding lines due to the funders' requirements of the universities.

In practice, doctoral students and prospective doctoral students are often included in preparing the applications for the externally funded projects through which their doctoral position is/will be funded. HAW Hamburg has a licence for the Electronic Research Funding Information System (ELFI). ELFI provides information on current calls for applications as well as national and international funding organisations and programmes. ELFI can be accessed at HAW Hamburg via VPN or the 'Wissenschaftsnetz': https://www.elfi.info/e_index.php. A list of current funding programmes is also available for HAW Hamburg members on the HAW Hamburg Intranet. 

Positions at HAW Hamburg are generally posted at https://www.haw-hamburg.de/hochschule/stellenangebote/wissenschaftliches-personal/. However, it is not always mandatory to post positions that are part of externally funded projects or which are financed with state funds. This means it can be worthwhile to ask your department and the relevant professors, or to contact them/maintain contact with them when a new project begins. It is often the case that prospective doctoral students are involved in writing the application for a research project which will include a funded position for them.

If you don't find a suitable option at HAW Hamburg, it is worth looking at open positions or funded projects at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the European Commission, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Max Planck Society or the Leibniz Association as a starting point for researching concrete doctoral positions. Various cooperative doctoral PhDs at HAW Hamburg are carried out together with Fraunhofer institutes. It may be possible for post-docs to continue working in this area too.

In addition to living expenses, other costs can also arise during your doctoral studies (see above). Even in the ideal case that you have a research position in a research project, not all costs will be covered by the project – for example, conference travel, literature, editing, translations, etc. Additionally, your dissertation may not necessarily be finished and published when the project or your employment contract ends.

It is possible to obtain scholarships or external funding for these expenses and transition periods. It is a good idea to familiarise yourself with these options and the application processes during your doctoral studies and then to make use of them. Experience writing and submitting applications is also an important skill for doctoral students who want to continue working in the academic sphere to have when they apply for other positions or want to obtain funding for their own post-doc project.

Although we don't advise against combining doctoral studies and career, the decision to undertake this process and the accompanying limitations should be considered carefully.