Doctorate

General Information

General information on doctorates at the University of Cologne can be found on the website of the Student Secretariat. The central contact point for doctorates at the Faculty of Humanities is the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne.

Topic agreement and planning phase

Before you apply for admission to the doctoral programme, you must first contact a possible first supervisor. You are welcome to contact Prof. Harst, Dr. Zehschnetzler or other lecturers of the programme with a (rough) idea of the topic. Participation in a Master's or doctoral colloquium is also recommended. In addition to the Research Master, the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne offers a Predoc scholarship for the doctoral preparation phase. Under certain conditions and provided that adequate supervision is found, it may be possible to do a doctorate in a subject at the Faculty of Humanities that is not identical to the subject of the degree (cf. Q and A (uni-koeln.de)).

Admission and doctoral programme

On the website of the Doctoral Office of the Faculty of Humanities you will find information on the formal procedure for admission to doctoral studies. The a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne offers a structured doctoral programme in the so-called Integrated Track. In addition, an individual doctorate with a self-organised doctoral phase is possible in the Regular Track. Information on the two doctoral models can be found here.

Special offers

The a.r.t.e.s. Mercator scholarship offers funding for doctorates in the humanities and cultural sciences that are related to practice and professional fields. In addition, the Cotutela doctorate offered by a.r.t.e.s. makes it possible to do a doctorate in two countries with a supervisor at the UzK and a supervisor at a foreign university.

Finances

Financing is possible through scholarships, among other things. An overview of the funding possibilities through the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne can be found here. The website of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research provides a list of the 13 funding organisations for doctoral funding, most of which have different ideological, political, denominational or economic orientations. Many foundations expect the application to be accompanied by a report from the supervisor or proof of admission to the doctoral programme from the university, so you should consult with the possible supervisor at the Junior Professorship in Comparative Literature before applying for a scholarship. Furthermore, it is possible to apply for research training groups (thematically bound) or for teaching/assistant jobs (usually not thematically bound) as well as private funding.