New instructions for organising doctoral thesis defences

There are three possible ways to organise the defence:

1. Traditional doctoral thesis defence where doctoral researcher, opponent, custos and public are all present in the doctoral thesis defence hall

• To increase the visibility of research, the event can be streamed unidirectionally (asking questions via remote connection is not possible) OR two-way (asking questions via remote connection is possible).

2. Doctoral researcher, opponent, OR custos attends remotely to the doctoral thesis defence

• Two of the parties and the public are present in the defence hall and the third party attends the event remotely.
• Two-way streaming of the defence is required.

3. All parties, doctoral researcher, opponent, custos, and the public, attend remotely to the doctoral thesis defence

• Hall is not needed.
• Two-way streaming of the defence is required.

General guidelines for the remote doctoral thesis defence

• Doctoral thesis defence is always open event and must be accessible to the public.
• The dissertation announcement published in the University’s website and any personal invitations must indicate a video conferencing software (Zoom, Teams, etc.) and a link to access the doctoral thesis defence. The link must be sent to the University’s Communication services together with the dissertation announcement.
• Two-way streaming of the defence requires in advance testing of the remote connection before the thesis defence date.

• The doctoral researcher or the custos may arrange so that there is a person who follows public questions and informs the custos accordingly.
• The doctoral candidate, the custos and the opponent can sit during the whole doctoral thesis defence.

• Potential questions by audience can be posed using chat. Posing questions verbally is not required. Introducer of the question must however present himself / herself (name, tittle). The custos must allow enough time to pose the question in chat.
• The remote connection must be open during doctoral thesis defence. The public must be able to participate at any stage of the defence.
• The custos does not necessarily have to be the supervisor.
• ICT support is only available for doctoral thesis defences in the University premises at office hours. For University Hospital’s lecture halls support must be asked from IT support of University Hospital.