Graduating with doctoral degree
Graduation instructions for doctoral students
Public defence at Aalto University
During the public examination of the doctoral thesis, or the defence, the doctoral student defends the results of their doctoral thesis and answers questions presented by the opponent, who has been appointed to evaluate the thesis. The course of the public defence is supervised by a custos, who usually is the supervising professor of the doctoral student. The public defence is also a ceremonial occasion that follows the academic traditions of each field.
On this page you can find Aalto University's instructions for arranging public defences.
On this page you can find Aalto University's instructions for arranging public defences.
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The date, time and language of the defence are confirmed by the Doctoral Programme Committee of the School at the same time when the opponent and custos are nominated.
How to confirm the details for defence and apply for nomination of opponent and custosCustomarily the defence begins at 12 o’clock sharp and takes approximately 2-3 hours. The audience must enter the hall by the time given in the defence event page, but the thesis defender, opponent and custos enter 15 minutes later.
The language of the event is customarily Finnish, Swedish, or English. Thesis defender generally gives the Lectio Praecursoria (max. 20 minutes) in the language of the public defence.
Responsibilities regarding defence arrangements
The practical arrangements of the defence are mainly the responsibility of the doctoral student. Some departments offer help with the arrangements.
Doctoral Programme
When the opponent and custos have been appointed and date, time, and language of the defence confirmed, the Doctoral Programme will send an official invitation to the opponent. The Doctoral Programme also sends instructions for the opponent regarding the examination of the thesis. The opponent is requested to submit their statement by email within two weeks from the date of the public defence either to the custos or directly to the Doctoral Programme. The guidelines of the Schools can be found via the links below:
Custos
The Doctoral Programme Committee appoints the supervising professor as the custos of the public defence. Another professor of the School with a doctoral degree in the same research field may also serve as the custos. The custos has the responsibilities listed below.
- Custos is responsible for hosting the opponent(s) during their visit. It is good to inform the opponent about the schedules well in advance. Custos of the defence should agree together with the opponent(s) on travel arrangements for their stay in Finland. The secretarial services of the department handle all the bookings and offer their assistance by request from the custos. Please note that doctoral student should not be in contact with the opponent(s) before the defence, except for sending the thesis in a pdf form to them.
- The custos is supervising that the public defence follows the guidelines of Aalto University and is responsible for instructing the opponent(s) on practicalities of the defence. In ARTS, the custos should ensure that the opponent(s) are familiar with the grading scale used and the principles of grading to be observed.
- In online or hybrid defences, the custos is responsible for instructing the audience during the defence. Custos should inform the guests to mute their microphones and keep their webcams closed unless they wish to ask a question regarding the doctoral work at the time allocated for comments. Student and custos should agree in advance how to proceed if there are any technical problems during the defence. It is recommended to have at hand an appointed person for fetching help if needed.
- The custos ensures that the statement of the opponent is made according to the guidelines of the School and that it is submitted to the Doctoral Programme within two (2) weeks from the date of the defence (or preferably at latest three (3) days before the next meeting of the Committee).
- In ARTS, custos must also submit their own report to the Committee covering the defence proceedings (e.g. the start and end times, number of persons in the audience).
Department
The secretarial services of the department handle all the bookings and offer their assistance by request from the custos. Note that for opponents based in Finland the travel arrangements and bookings are typically made directly by the opponent or by opponent's home institution, and travel expenses will be refunded afterwards. Department also pays the reimbursement for the opponents. Some departments also offer help for the doctoral student with the practical arrangements.
Practical arrangements (doctoral student)
The practical arrangements of the defence are mainly the responsibility of the doctoral student. Some departments offer help with the arrangements.
The School is responsible for publishing the defence event page online at Aalto.fi. Your responsibilty is to submit the public defence announcement, which is added to the event.
Public defence announcement and public display of thesis (aalto.fi)Discuss with the custos if it is worthwhile to advertise your thesis and the defence outside the Aalto community. You can prepare a press release for this purpose (possible targets: STT, Tekniikka & Talous, science journals, etc.).
Send the final PDF version of the doctoral thesis to the opponent as soon as it is ready. You should not be in contact with the opponent regarding the thesis in any other way before the defence.
The Doctoral Programme will inform you how the printed version of the thesis is delivered to the opponent and other parties. Some departments also offer help with the distribution of the printed thesis. Please see also the detailed instructions of your own School via:Distribution of thesis (aalto.fi)
- You can invite personal guests to the public defence such as persons related to the field, pre-examiners, advisors, and family members.
- Check out your School's defence protocol and dress code, links are available in the section Schools' protocols for the public defence and post-doctoral party below.
- If you wish to offer refreshments for the audience after the defence as is customary, you need to arrange the catering and pay for it. There are cafeterias in most campus buildings which cater for refreshments.
- It is recommended that you arrange for a person to help out with the practical arrangements at the defence, e.g. sorting our any last-minute practical dilemmas, arranging refreshments and giving out audience etiquette (available for ARTS).
- Organisation of the Post-doctoral Party ("Karonkka"). All costs for the Karokka party and arrangements are your responsibility.
- Make sure that you have booked a space for preparation before the defence (in addition to booking the lecture hall for the defence). Usually the booking is made for 10:00-16:00 to reserve enough time for preparations. Ask help from your department or supervising professor.
- Please check in advance that the technical details of your presentation work in the lecture hall - if you need help, contact the lobby services of the building. You can also make a service request for IT or AV assistance at [email protected] (several days in advance).
- Agree in advance with the custos how to proceed if there are any technical problems during the defence. It is recommended to have at hand an appointed person for fetching help if needed.
- Venue signs: Depending on the building, you can either send an A4-sized notice of the defence (Defence of XX XX, date, place) to the lobby services of the building, who will display it outside the hall where the defence will take place; or alternatively, send the same information to be placed on the video screens of the building (Ekonominaukio 1).
- Contact the IT Services several days in advance to agree on IT support for the remote public examination at [email protected].
- Please note that there should be someone from your own team monitoring Zoom during the defence, in addition to custos and yourself. IT services can help mainly before and at the beginning of the defence. You can ask a student colleague to help, for example.
- Familiarise yourself with the Zoom instructions for remote defences and Zoom Quick Guide (Aalto IT Services).
- Submit a Zoom link for your defence to the Doctoral Programme at the latest 15 days prior the public defence.
- The custos is responsible for instructing the participants during the public examination. Custos should advice the participants to mute their microphones and to keep their webcams closed unless they wish to ask a question at the given time allocated for comments.
Schools' protocols for the public defence and post-doctoral party
Each School has also their own, specific instructions for the public defence and the post-doctoral party, which are academic events following the traditions of each field. These include e.g. protocol/proceedings of the defence, roles of the opponent and the custos, dress code and traditions related to the "karonkka", ie. the post-doctoral party.
Next public defences
Public defence in Acoustics and Speech Technology, M.Sc. Farhad Javanmardi
Automatic Classification of Voice Disorders and Phonation Types from Speech Signals (title of the thesis)
Public defence in Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism, Architect Katriina Rosengren
Struggling to keep up with segregation in Finland
Public defence in Electrical Power and Energy Engineering, M.Sc. Shamsul Arefeen Al Mahmud
Towards free-positioning self-adaptive wireless power transfer systems (title of the thesis)
Public defence in Bioelectronics and Instrumentation, M.Sc.(Tech.) Dennis Yeung
Algorithms for robust human-machine interfacing via surface electromyography (title of the thesis)
Doctoral education services
We support doctoral students, supervising professors, thesis advisors and doctoral programme directors in matters related to doctoral studies.
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Index of all aalto.fi pages about doctoral education
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