Please start the process about six months before the planned defence date!

Table of Contents

Assignment of a thesis to reviewers

The dissertation will be assessed by two external experts who are either habilitated or have an equivalent qualification in the respective research field, and who are preferably located outside Austria. The doctoral candidate and their supervisor(s) are entitled to propose three reviewers. The Studienpräses is responsible for the final approval of the reviewers.

Qualifications of reviewers: Reviewers are members of the appropriate scientific community, have excellent scientific and academic credentials and are either qualified professors or hold an academic qualification equivalent to that of an Austrian professorship (habilitation). To ensure that your dissertation is assessed as objectively as possible, the proposed reviewers must have no close personal or professional relationship with your supervisor, no affiliation with your department/work group, and must not be co-authors of your dissertation.

Steps to be taken:

  • Obtain the approval from your supervisor(S) and ideally also the consent of the proposed reviewers.
  • Complete the SL/D3 form.
  • Email the form, together with German and English abstracts (use the SL/D4 form) and short scientific CVs of the proposed reviewers (including a list of recent publications) to the responsible SSC. 
  • The SSC will inform you about the assignment of reviewers by the Studienpräses by email within four weeks.
  • Of importance: It is vital that you obtain the reviewers' assignment from the Studienpräses before uploading your thesis to u:space.

Formal Requirements

Cumulative dissertation. Requirements.

Details are published in the 'Guidelines for the use of publications in scientific theses' (German or English) and information sheets by the Office of the Studienpräses.

A cumulative dissertation presents results not as a monograph but as a collection of publications.

  • The dissertation must correspond to the scientific contribution of a monograph in its entirety.
  • The publications/manuscripts must be related to one another, linked by an overarching research question
  • All publications and manuscripts included must be listed alongside the author's name, the title, information on the processing status and information on the respective personal contribution of the doctoral candidate.
  • The status of the publications (peer-reviewed) and manuscripts must also be provided: published publications, accepted manuscripts (including date of confirmation of acceptance), or submitted manuscripts (date of confirmation of receipt). 
  • Further materials belonging to the dissertation, which are not intended for publication, can be presented in separate chapters.
  • The usual formal requirements also apply to cumulative dissertations, such as bibliography, correct citation, etc..
  • Please note that images are also subject to the citation rules, i.e. you must cite the sources and adhere to copyright law when using images.

Stucture: Cumulative dissertations shall be submitted in bound form; all sections – irrespective of the printing format of the original publication – shall be copied onto DIN-A4-format sheets. Consecutive numbering of all sheets, including publications, is mandatory

  • Cover Sheet: see submission section
  • Table of Content
  • Preamble
  • Synopsis of the Publications/Manuscripts
  • Concluding Discussion
    Note: If thematically appropriate, the introduction and final discussion can be combined.
  • Abstract

Formal Requirements for thesis upload and hard-copies

According to the Statutory Order of 28 February 2024, the formal requirements for academic theses must be observed. The legally binding version is in German. The key points are:

Formal Requirements for Academic Theses

  • The title page shall be bilingual (German/English) and meet the requirements of the u:space upload platform (see next section).
  • The thesis must include also an abstract in German.

Formal Requirements for the Submission of the Electronic Version

  • All documents shall be uploaded in PDF format (PDF/A). Each academic thesis shall be uploaded as one single document in PDF format. The text shall be machine-readable.
  • The successful upload will be documented by an upload confirmation (Hochladebestätigung), which shall be signed and, handed in when submitting the printed thesis.

Formal Requirements for the Submission of the Printed Version

  • The printout of the submitted electronic version (PDF/A) is to be used for the submission of the printed thesis.
  • Format: exclusively DIN A4 (210 x 297 mm), portrait (vertical) format, bound in hard cover and printed double-sided, margins shall be selected in such a manner as to allow binding and stapling.
  • The University of Vienna makes the title, abstract and metadata of the electronic version available online on the university publication server or on a similarly suitable platform of the university.

Submission of the dissertation

Upload of the dissertation and Plagiarism check

Start by uploading your thesis on u:space so that it can be checked for plagiarism. 

  • First, you need to review and verify the data in u:space that will be printed on the title page. This information is automatically loaded from university’s database and includes your name and academic degrees, as well as details regarding the supervision of your thesis.
  • Every thesis must contain a German and English  abstract of at least 500 characters. The abstract is a brief summary of the central points of your thesis.
  • For the title page of the thesis, there are concrete specifications regarding the layout and the data listed. To ensure that your title page is correct in terms of form and content, the system in u:space will create it automatically from your data. Please do not use a title page you have created yourself in advance, as this will not be accepted during the formal check
  • Mandatory declarations shall be made during the upload process. They include the confirmation of authorship and compliance with good academic practice (declaration of authorship) as well as the consequences of misconduct (in accordance with Statues of the University of Vienna, section regulating study law, § 17.)
  • The electronic version of the academic thesis is supplied for long-term digital archiving. Details non shared data see in the Annex, Section Upload, of the Statutory Order.
  • Once you have uploaded the document succesfully, you will receive an upload confirmation ("Hochladebestätigung").
  • If any textual similarities are detected between your work and other texts, the study programme management will examine whether it constitutes plagiarism.
  • Please do not proceed with printing your thesis until you have received feedback (via email to your u:account) confirming a successful plagiarism check. The printed version must exactly match the electronically submitted version.
  • After a successful plagiarism check, you must submit at least 3 hard-bound copies of your thesis. You will need to present the upload confirmation ("Hochladebestätigung") for this submission.

Hardbound Copy

  • The printed version must be identical to the uploaded electronic version. It is therefore strongly recommended to use the uploaded electronic version (PDF/A-1 or PDF/A-2) for the print version.
  • You must submit at least 3 hardbound copies to the responsible SSC within 10 working days after uploading the electronic version.
  • Embargo requests in keeping with § 86, paragraph 4 of the Universities Act 2002 shall be submitted together with the academic thesis, stating a plausible and detailed reason. Embargo requests submitted at any subsequent time shall not be taken into consideration.
  • The confirmation of the successful upload shall be submitted together with the print version at the latest.
  • After checking for textual similarities (plagiarism), the SSC will forward the thesis to the reviewers for evaluation if no objections are raised. If the reviewers accept PDF files, the PDF version will be sent to them after the plagiarism check. If they do not accept PDF files, you must submit additional hard copies to the SSC. 

Important Notes and Contact information

Before submitting your dissertation

Before submitting your dissertation, please contact the relevant SSC, as you need to submit further supporting documents. 

  • A copy of the notice of admission to the doctoral programme (only required for non-consecutive admission).
  • A completed Examination Record/Prüfungspass (on page 3, enter the ECTS credits to be used according to the doctoral thesis agreement in the ECTS extent of your curriculum; on page 2, enter only the requirements according to the Notice of Admission, if required).
  • Your curriculum vitae.
  • Optional form: SL/W3 'Blockage of the thesis'. You must submit this request together with the thesis, providing a plausible and detailed reason.
  • If your name contains any special characters (e.g. Ć Ø Š Œ Ň Ő Ů Ł Ñ, etc.) that cannot be displayed on your student record sheet, please inform the SSC when submitting your record of examinations or when submitting your thesis. Please provide proof by submitting a copy of your passport and a printout on which the name is spelled correctly. This is the only way to ensure that the degree certificates and final documents are issued correctly.

Points of contact for corrections or withdrawal after upload

  • The withdrawal of an inadvertently uploaded thesis can only be carried out AFTER the plagiarism check and is only possible if there is NO suspicion of plagiarism.
  • Incorrect title pages shall be corrected both in the electronic version and the printed version.
  • Correction of typing errors and layout modification are not possible after the academic thesis has been assessed and cannot be made in either the electronic or the printed version.
  • Service addresses for questions and problems:
    • For general questions about the degree and submission process, please contact the responsible StudentServiceCenter.
    • The FirstLevelSupport desk of the Library of the University of Vienna provides assistance with questions about the uploading process (u-theses.ub@univie.ac.at).
    • For all questions after uploading, the SecondLevelSupport desk of the Office of the President of studies legislation and affairs is available (e-einreichung@univie.ac.at).
  • Theses written in collaboration shall be uploaded by each author individually, in accordance with the Statues of the University of Vienna, section regulating study law (§ 14, paragraph 8). In this case, the confirmation of authorship refers to the part written from the author of the co-authored work. All authors must be listed on the title page.

SSC- StudiesServiceCentres: contact information

IMPORTANT Notes: 
(i) For data protection reasons, all email enquiries must be sent from your u:account email address. 
(ii) Enquiries from former students sent from private email accounts will not be answered unless a scanned official photo ID is attached.

StudiesServiceCenter Life Sciences

Dr. Ernst Castellitz
Tel: +43-1-4277-50100
Email

Postal address
StudienServiceCenter Lebenswissenschaften
Universität Wien
University of Vienna Biology Building
Djerassiplatz 1
1030 Wien

StudiesServiceCenter Sport Science

Mr. Gerald Heissig
Tel: +43-1-4277-59302
Email

Postal address
StudienServiceCenter Sportwissenschaft
Universität Wien
Auf der Schmelz 6
1150 Wien

 Forms

 Guidelines of the University of Vienna

Scientific theses: Formal requirements, guidelines for the cumulative dissertation and copyright: issued by the Office of the Studienpräses.

Creating a PDF/A