Everything about applying for a part-time doctoral programme
The application process at HSBA consists of several steps: At the beginning, find out about the doctorate as such to find out whether the part-time cooperative doctorate is right for you. Check whether you meet the formal admission criteria and submit your application documents. After going through the personal selection interviews, enrolment in the Graduate Centre takes place.
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:
The Central Office for Foreign Education (ZAB) decides on the equivalence of foreign educational qualifications. The guidelines are
Particularly in the case of higher education qualifications obtained outside the European Union, it is advisable to have an individual transcript evaluation prepared by the ZAB and to enclose this with your application documents.
Supporting application documents are:
Send all application documents as ONE coherent pdf file to friederike.littmann(at)hsba.de
* General guidelines for preparing a CV vary greatly between countries. The Europass CV of the European Union offers you a good orientation for the content and graphic preparation of your CV.
There are no application deadlines. We accept applications all year round. It can take three to six months from receipt of the application to formal acceptance into the doctoral programme.
If your formal application documents are convincing, you will be invited to a personal interview by a supervising professor. If you are still interested in a doctorate, you will have an interview with our Vice President for Research and International Affairs. Here, your general development potential and goals will be discussed. The extent to which HSBA can support you in achieving these goals through the accompanying seminar programme will be examined.
During these discussions, you will have the opportunity to choose a preferred title-awarding partner university. It may be necessary to revise the exposé.
Once you have gone through the selection process at HSBA, the enrolment process at the title-awarding partner university can take place. Discussions are held with other supervising professors and university-specific documents and forms are submitted.
Some doctoral regulations provide for the acquisition of additional ECTS points or compulsory attendance of doctoral seminars. Decisions on the mutual recognition of seminars are made on a case-by-case basis.
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.
As soon as you have been officially admitted to the Graduate Centre, you can use the research infrastructure of HSBA.
This concerns in particular:
It can take three to six months from receipt of the application to formal acceptance into the doctoral programme. Further information on the application process and the admission steps can be found here.
No. 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 also be interested in your research results, so that the synergy effects between work and doctorate are great.
Maybe. 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
Unfortunately, no. As a dual university, the practical relevance of our research is particularly important to us. In addition, your job search involves many imponderables (e.g. potential full-time employment, a lack of support from your future employer or a necessary thematic reorientation of your favoured doctoral topic), which also complicate your content-related and personal planning. Feel free to apply if you have found employment that can be combined with a doctorate.
In this case, the placement process at the appropriate title-granting university is often difficult. Most title-awarding universities require 300 ECTS points for enrolment. If you have less than this, the respective doctoral committee may decide whether you can still be admitted to the procedure as an exception. The enrolment process is delayed because you may be accepted subject to conditions (e.g. making up ECTS points). This often prolongs the overall duration of the doctorate. Since these are exceptions, in the worst case you cannot start the doctoral studies because no title-granting university can be found that approves an exception.