PhD Program

The doctoral candidate is supervised by an authorized person (supervisor), who can be a member of the Medical Faculty, or from another faculty at the LMU or can belong to an external institution. Please have your supervisor sign your supervision agreement, which is generated as a PDF by the Campus Portal, with an original, handwritten signature. Sign it yourself by hand as well. Upload a scan of the signed supervision agreement to your Campus Portal account and send the original by mail to the MMRS (Bavariaring 19, 80366 München).

During the first semester of the doctoral research project, each Ph.D. candidate must have a Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC). The TAC is comprised of the supervisor, the second reviewer (must be private lecturer or professor) and a third TAC member (has to be at least an independent group leader). All areas of the research project should be appropriately covered. At least two members of the TAC must be members of the LMU's Medical Faculty.

The Ph.D. candidate should meet with his/her TAC in regular intervals and discuss the progress of the Ph.D. project and to determine the progress of the project. These meetings should be during the 3rd and during the 5th semester at the very latest. The student should prepare a written summary of his/her project and send it before the meeting to the members of the committee. At the meeting the student should give a 20-40min presentation about the progress of the project. The results and conclusions of the meeting should be summarized in a TAC Meeting Protocol and signed by all members of the committee and the student.

Together with his/her TAC, the Ph.D. candidate signs a target agreement (with original signatures), which not only reflects the supervision, but also gives information on the planned research project, milestones, curricular elements, etc. The target agreements is signed by all TAC members and the Ph.D. candidate. The signatures must be handwritten originals in ink. It must be handed in by the end of the second semester the very latest, otherwise the Ph.D. candidate will be exmatriculated from the program. Please use the Campus Portal to generate your target agreement. Upload a scan of the signed target agreement to your Campus Portal account and send the original by mail to the MMRS (Bavariaring 19, 80366 München).

The PhD program GMM has a duration of 3 to max. 5 years.

Within the framework of the structured PhD program, doctoral candidates need to obtain a total of 180 ECTS:

• 30 ECTS within the actual curriculum
• 17 ECTS for methods
• 8 ECTS for conferences, retreats, etc.
• 5 ECTS for skills
• 140 ECTS within the scope of the research project, including work on the thesis
• 10 ECTS for the oral defense 

Once all requirements within the framework of the target agreement have been fulfilled, the TAC can initiate the scientific assessment of the thesis. You need to submit all relevant documents via the Campus Portal (in your account), as well as submitting original documents to the MMRS (personally or via post). For more information on the submission process and the required documents, please see here.

Upon acceptance of the thesis the Ph.D. candidate is admitted to his/her oral defense. For more information, please click here.

In one year after the oral defense, the Ph.D. candidate must submit 2 bound copies (statutory copies), one digital copy (PDF) and 2 forms for the submission of electronic theses to the university library.

The Doctor's Degree ("Promotionsurkunde") is issued upon successful completion of the oral defense and submission of the statutory copies. Simultaneously, the Doctor's Certificate ("Promotionszeugnis") is issued. It contains the same date as the Degree, as well as the title of the thesis, the individual grades (thesis and oral defense) and the overall final grade.

More information on the completion of the Ph.D. can be found here.