Doctoral defence KI SÖS

Before applying

The application for a public defence should be prepared well in advance, preferably three months or more before the desired defence date. Please note that you must submit Part 1 of the application for review by KI SÖS one week before the deadline set by the Dissertation Committee.

At KI SÖS, we prefer only one doctoral student to defend on a given date, but exceptions can be made. Please check your preferred date with the doctoral education administration well in advance.

• Book a venue for the desired defence date on a weekday during term time. Venues are booked through your department or clinic.
• Establish contact with the opponent and examination board members. Ensure that they are available on the desired defence date and that the examination board members are able to participate in the preliminary review of the constituent papers. Appoint a coordinator within the examination board and inform them about the responsibilities of the role, see Information for examination boards and others. Make sure that the contact details provided in the application are correct and remain valid until the defence.
• Contact a printer to find out how long the printing process will take. Obtain permission for publication from journals and acquire an ISBN number, see printing a thesis.
• Complete your comprehensive summary (thesis summary). Please note that the summary will be checked to ensure that no plagiarism is present. At the same time, any self-plagiarism in the text will also be identified, more information.

Application

A suitable interval between the Dissertation Committee meetings and the desired defence date is approximately 10 weeks. This is to protect the doctoral student from having to postpone the defence if the process is delayed for any reason.

Use Form 9, version 2024-03-15, according to the instructions.  

See further instructions on the forms page.

Examination board and opponent

The aim of the composition of the examination board is for the members’ combined expertise to cover the entire field of the thesis. All members must hold the title of docent or professor. The opponent must hold a doctoral degree, be an expert in the thesis field, and have no conflict of interest in relation to the doctoral student, supervisors, or project. There is no requirement for the opponent to hold the title of docent.

Examination board members and the opponent must be impartial and free from conflicts of interest in their assessment so that there can be no doubt that the members have reached their decision objectively in relation to the doctoral student, supervisors, and project (KI’s guidelines on conflict of interest (COI)).

• A conflict of interest exists in cases of scientific collaboration and co-publication that have taken place within the past five years. A single joint article is sufficient to count as co-publication.
• A conflict of interest may exist for longer than five years if there has been close collaboration.
• A doctoral student–supervisor relationship is considered a conflict of interest regardless of how long ago the collaboration took place.
• Exceptions to the five-year rule may be made for collaboration in the form of multicentre studies, assessed on a case-by-case basis.

For further information, see Application for public defence

Procedures for preliminary review and signatures for the defence application at KI SÖS

At an early stage, contact KI SÖS at forskarutbildning@kisos.ki.se before planning to submit your application for public defence. This is to ensure that the preliminary review and signatures from the Director of Doctoral Studies and Head of Department can be completed in time. One week before the application is submitted to the Dissertation Committee, Part 1A  Form 9 D1-D6 must be sent to KI SÖS for preliminary review. The form should be sent to forskarutbildning@kisos.ki.se. After any necessary additions or corrections, the form is signed by the Director of Doctoral Studies and the Head of Department.

Once the application has been approved and signed by the department, the complete application is sent to disputation@ki.se. See further instructions in the form, Form 9.

Thesis nailing

All doctoral theses and licentiate theses at KI are published publicly no later than three weeks before the defence through electronic publication in KI Open Archive.

Three copies to KI SÖS

Three (3) copies of the printed thesis must be physically delivered to the administration at KI SÖS as soon as possible after publication.

Physical nailing

The physical posting must take place outside the libraries at KI in Solna or Flemingsberg. It is also possible to place an additional copy of the thesis on the notice board located in the student corridor at KI SÖS.

Nail and string are collected at the same time as the nail copy (a copy with a hole in the left corner) from the printer.

Nailing and distribution of theses.