Doctoral Thesis

Before you submit your thesis manuscript for pre-examination, you must submit it to iThenticate for electronic plagiarism control. For iThenticate user info, please click here. Note that you can examine your manuscript for plagiarism in iThenticate several times, i.e. it is possible to make changes and corrections before you submit the final version. The final version must be submitted to iThenticate at the latest one week before permission for pre-examination can be granted.

The final results of the plagiarism control are sent to your degree supervisor and to Olli-Pekka Kauppila the Director of the Hanken PhD Programme, who is responsible for discussing the results with the supervisor. If the results give cause to suspect plagiarism they will be examined by the degree supervisor.

If you have questions concerning plagiarism control, please contact the PhD Programme manager at doctoral.studies(at)hanken.fi. If you have technical problems or questions concerning iThenticate, please send an email to ithenticate(at)hanken.fi.

Discuss the time of submission with your thesis and degree supervisor. A tenured faculty members in the research track (i.e. all associate professors regardless of their title in Swedish), can serve as degree supervisors to doctoral researchers. His/her task is to ensure that Hanken's regulations are followed throughout the process and that all relevant decision material is available when needed.

Please make sure that your manuscript is formatted according to the Hanken standards. For more information please see the library's web pages. In order to have your thesis pre-examined, please fill in the following form:

Request for appointment of pre-examiners for a doctoral thesis

The administrator makes a proposal for permission for public examination/pre-examiners of your manuscript. You are entitled to see the proposal before it is submitted. You then inform your supervisor whether you wish to make any comments or not. If you do, send a statement to doctoral.studies(at)hanken.fi, cc: the administrator and registrator(at)hanken.fi. Information of the decision will be sent to you, the administrator, the Registrar of Hanken and the Doctoral Studies council.

The Registrar forwards the submitted manuscript to the pre-examiners. In order to guarantee the objectivity of the grading process, you are not to contact the pre-examiners yourself, nor to send them your manuscript. The pre-examiners need to be left in peace to do their work. You are therefore not to send them any updated versions of the manuscript. The time allocated to the pre-examiners to complete their examination and submit separate assessments of the manuscript is two months. The assessments conclude with one of the following recommendations:

a) The manuscript is acceptable for publication and public examination.

b) The manuscript is acceptable, provided that the corrections detailed in the assessment are made. This shall be verified by the thesis supervisor.

c) The manuscript contains major shortcomings. After the necessary corrections, the manuscript is to be returned to the pre-examiners for a new evaluation.

d) The manuscript is not acceptable for publication and public examination.

The pre-examiners send their assessments to the Registrar, who forwards them to you and the degree supervisor (cc: Hanken PhD programme coordinator).

After receipt of all assessments, the thesis manuscript is revised in accordance with the pre-examiners’ recommendations in consultation with your degree supervisor within 12 months. In case needed, the final manuscript should be language checked before it is given its final form (in practice, it is ready for publication). Information about language check will be supplied by your degree supervisor or by the department. Also remember to contact doctoralthesis@hanken.fi in order to check the right format for printing out the manuscript.
(NB! You should contact doctoralthesis@hanken.fi for the first time before you submit your PhD at the beginning of the evaluation process.)

When the thesis has been language-checked and is ready for publication, please fill in the following form:

Permission for public examination of doctoral thesis

After this the administrator proposes to the Doctoral Studies Council that permission for public examination be granted, as well as proposes the appointment of the opponent and the chair. The proposal is based on the assessments from the pre-examiners and you have the right to see the proposal. If you have no objections, you should inform the supervisor accordingly. If you think the proposal is unjustified (i.e. do not comment directly on the proposal for examination, but focus on the arguments presented by the expert in support of his/her proposal), submit a well-reasoned statement to the Doctoral Studies Council (submit this per email to registrator (at) hanken.fi and doctoral.studies (at) hanken.fi, cc: the administrator.

The Doctoral Studies Council decides whether or not to grant permission for public examination. The Registrar will inform you officially about the outcome and will also supply instructions concerning requests for rectification.

When the opponent has been appointed, the Registrar sends the manuscript submitted by you, as well as any attachments, to the opponent. The opponent has 4 weeks to study the final manuscript. Please remember that you are not to contact your opponent before the public defence; the chair handles all communication concerning the practical arrangements relating to the public examination.

Please note that after the Doctoral Studies council has granted permission for public examination, only technical changes may be made to the manuscript (e.g. corrections of spelling mistakes and modifications of the document setup). There must be no changes in content, since the manuscript would then no longer be the one accepted for public examination by the Doctoral Studies Council. The proposal for granting permission for public examination should therefore not be made before the manuscript is in it's final form!

When the Doctoral Studies Council has given permission for the public examination of a doctoral thesis, you may submit your manuscript for publication, either to the Hanken series “Ekonomi och Samhälle” (Economics and Society), or to some other publishing house. You can ask doctoralthesis@hanken.fi for more information on publishing in the Hanken series. The library Web site also contains important information. The manuscript should be submitted at the latest six (6) weeks before the public examination, or, if you publish elsewhere, in time for the thesis to be available at the latest ten (10) days before the public examination. It is advisable to contact doctoralthesis@hanken.fi in good time, otherwise you may risk the publication being delayed and the public defence having to be postponed.

Hanken’s publishing unit, like other publishers, will usually expect you to enclose authorisations by any co-authors and publishers of printed articles/essays to be included in the thesis.

The thesis should be available at the latest ten (10) days before the public examination. If your manuscript is not published in Hanken’s publication series, you should deliver these copies to the library in good time, with further copies for internal and external distribution. You can ask doctoralthesis@hanken.fi about the number of copies.

When proposing the public examination, the administrator also proposes the date of the defence.

The Doctoral studies council determines the date and time of the public defence in consultation with the administrator on the basis of the guidelines and rules established by DSC and with such advance notice that the quality of other processes is not compromised. The doctoral researcher and DSC get's informed by the decision.

At Hanken we organize Public defences 

1) The public defence of the PhD thesis is primarily organized physically at Hanken (in Helsinki or Vaasa) with streaming.

2) If the opponent cannot attend in person or if there are other compelling reasons, the defence can be organized as a hybrid model.

3) Online defences are not allowed.

4) Hanken does not record the public defences of PhD theses or grant permissions to record these events.

 Advice and instructions on the public defence are available on a separate Web page here.

 After the public examination, the opponent should submit his/her statement, including a grading proposal, within one(1) weeks to registrator(at)hanken.fi. After receipt of the statement, the Registrar forwards it to the administrator, the chair, and you. The administrator makes a proposal to the Doctoral Studies council for approval of the thesis based on the opponent’s statement. You then have the right to hand in a reasoned statement; otherwise you should inform the Custos that you have no objections to the statement or the proposal. As was the case with the pre-examiners’ statements, you do not comment on the proposed grade, but on the argumentation in the statements to doctoral.studies(at)hanken.fi, registrator(at)hanken.fi, cc: the administrator.

When the Doctoral Studies Council has approved your thesis, you may apply for your degree certificate, provided you have passed all other required examinations. Your degree supervisor verifies the examinations you have taken and confirms them as elements of your degree, where after the Rector will give his/her approval.

Degree certificate award ceremonies are held in accordance with a predetermined timetable (see the information on application for degree certificates supplied by the Office of Study Affairs here).

A solemn ceremonial conferment of doctoral degrees takes place every five years. You will receive separate relevant advance information.