The application process at HSBA involves several steps: Start by thoroughly informing yourself about the doctoral procedure to ensure that the part-time cooperative doctorate aligns with your professional and personal goals. Ensure that you meet the formal admission criteria and submit your application documents. Upon successful completion of the personal selection interviews, you will be admitted to the cooperative doctoral program. Here, you can unleash your passion for academic work and begin your research.
Our doctoral program at HSBA offers you the ideal research and development platform for advancing your academic career. At the center of this program are you, the PhD candidate: With direct support from an HSBA professor, you will engage in innovative and practice-oriented research. Our esteemed partner university ensures the highest quality standards through its academic oversight and awards the coveted doctoral degree. Your employer will not only provide a direct link to practical application but also actively promote the transfer of your knowledge into practice. This proven synergy between academia and industry guarantees you focused supervision and dynamic collaboration that will elevate your career to the next level. Join our program and actively shape your academic future!
The first step is to find out more about HSBA, our departments, the supervising professors and the part-time doctoral programme.
You can also get to know HSBA at public events. You can find an overview of all events here.
Formal requirements for admission to the HSBA cooperative doctoral programme are:
Supporting application documents are:
Send all application documents as ONE coherent pdf file to sabine.lebedinski(at)hsba.de.
The doctoral programme always starts on 1 April and 1 October each year. You can submit your application documents to us at any time. It can take three to six months from receipt of the application to formal admission to the doctoral programme.
If your formal application documents are convincing, we will be happy to invite you to a personal interview with a supervising professor. In this interview, you will be able to convince us of your personal and academic strengths, discuss your development potential and goals, and discuss how HSBA can best support you through the accompanying doctoral programme.
During the interview, you will have the opportunity to choose a preferred partner university to award the title. It may be necessary to revise your exposé.
After the admission interviews have been held at HSBA, the doctoral agreement can be concluded. This regulates our joint supervisory relationship and summarises details of the doctoral programme, the seminar programme, the degree-awarding university and the payment modalities.
The process from receiving the application to being formally accepted into the doctoral program can span from three to six months. Further information on the application process and the admission steps can be found here.
The choice of the partner university is based on the thematic alignment of your dissertation topic. Your HSBA supervisor will propose a suitable co-supervisor from the HSBA partner network to ensure excellent primary and secondary supervision of your doctoral project.
Unfortunately, you can't. The doctorate is the highest academic degree that can be earned in Germany. It requires a high degree of commitment and resilience as well as sufficient time resources. For many, the doctorate is in itself a full-time job. Therefore, we strongly recommend a part-time workload of 20 - 30 hours per week. A regular workload of more than 20 hours per week should be well considered. Clarify with your employer whether you can use parts of your working hours for your doctorate. Ideally, your employer will show interest in your research outcomes, maximizing the synergy between your work and doctoral studies.
Possibly. We know that grading systems vary greatly between countries, universities and degree programmes. Therefore, in your particular case, an average grade of 2.6 may be a very good performance (measured against your overall cohort of your degree programme at your university). In order to be able to assess this better, the ECTS grade is often listed on official transcript documents (usually Diploma Supplement). The ECTS grade is a relative and not an absolute grade. The ECTS grade is calculated by comparing the individual grade of a graduate to the grades of a reference group. The reference group is defined per degree programme. If you fall into category "B" (or better) here, you can still apply for the doctoral programme.
ECTS Grading Table
ECTS grade
A Best 10%
B Next 25%
C Next 30%
D Next 25%
E Lowest 10%
FX Failed - improvements are required before credit is given
F Failed - significant improvements are required
No, exclusive remote participation in the cooperative doctoral program is not possible. There are mandatory on-site events that you must attend. Additionally, it may be necessary to be present for seminars, presentations, and other academic obligations. Partner universities may also require some level of on-site presence. A certain degree of flexibility for conference travel or other activities is also necessary.
Regrettably, no. As a dual university, we place significant emphasis on the practical applicability of our research. Furthermore, your current job search introduces numerous uncertainties (such as potential full-time employment, lack of support from a future employer, or the need to adjust your preferred doctoral topic), which could complicate both your academic and personal planning. We encourage you to apply once you've secured employment that can be harmonized with doctoral studies.
In such instances, navigating the placement process at the appropriate title-granting university can prove challenging. Most universities awarding titles require 300 ECTS points for enrollment. If you fall short of this requirement, the respective doctoral committee may evaluate whether you can still be admitted to the program under exceptional circumstances. This might result in delays in the enrollment process as you could be conditionally accepted (e.g., with the requirement to fulfill additional ECTS points). Such conditions often extend the overall duration of the doctoral program. As these cases are exceptions, in the worst-case scenario, you might be unable to commence doctoral studies if no title-granting university agrees to make an exception.
