Quality Assurance

The Cooperative Doctoral Platform creates structures for ensuring quality during the cooperative doctoral process. In doing so, it promotes the unbiased access of graduates of universities of applied sciences to a doctor’s degree, besides making sure that early career researchers are appropriately supervised and the rules of good scientific practice are adhered to.

Supervision Agreement

The appropriate supervision of early career researchers is crucially important for a successful doctoral procedure. In compliance with the recommendations of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities, the Cooperative Doctoral Platform provides for the signing of a Supervision Agreement. This agreement sets forth the rights and duties of both the doctoral candidate and the supervisor to clarify mutual expectations and to guarantee an optimal supervisory relationship that is transparent and geared to individual needs.

Doctoral Committee

In order to conduct cooperative doctorates, the Research Campus of Central Hessen has set up a Doctoral Committee comprising professors of the three participating universities. This committee supports the participating universities in cooperative doctoral procedures. It assesses the criteria which must be fulfilled for acceptance in a cooperative doctoral procedure and the academic quality of the applications of those seeking acceptance as doctoral candidates. In each case, the Doctoral Committee submits a recommendation to the Examination Board of the university faculty in which the doctoral project is to be conducted. The decision to accept or reject the applicant is made by the Examination Board of the university faculty. The Doctoral Committee ensures that graduates of universities of applied sciences have fair access to a doctoral degree.

Conflicts in the Doctoral Process

The doctoral phase is an intensive, emotional and sometimes difficult journey. Occasionally, conflicts arise between supervisors and doctoral candidates. The majority of these conflicts can be resolved by a dialogue between the conflicting parties.
The Cooperative Doctoral Platform of the Research Campus offers a 2-phase model for settling disputes:

In the first phase, the Administrative Office of the Research Campus is available as a contact partner and mediator.
In the second phase, an ombudsperson of the FCMH is consulted. For this purpose, the Research Campus has three ombudspersons: a professor from each of the participating universities.

Generally, the first phase consists of a low-threshold mediation process of the Management Office of the Research Campus. In this way, minor disputes, e.g. those based on misunderstandings, can be efficiently settled at an early stage. For instance, doctoral candidates may approach the Management Office for help with addressing a problem or options for dealing with it.

If the conflict cannot be solved in the first phase, an ombudsperson of the Research Campus is consulted. The person seeking assistance is able to choose who of the three ombudspersons is to be approached. In this second phase, the person seeking assistance, the Management Office of the Research Campus and the selected ombudsperson meet to discuss further action, the involvement of the other conflicting party and ways of solving the conflict.

Consultations are confidential and their content will not be communicated to third parties. Other persons (e.g. ombudspersons or the other conflicting party) will only be asked to be involved if you wish, and the Management Office will clearly explain and discuss any further action to be taken. You can ask for the procedure to be stopped at any time.

The phase model does not necessarily have to proceed in this order. The person seeking advice may also contact the ombudsperson of the Research Campus directly. Alternatively, the other supervisor, the Head of the Examination Board of the faculty to which the cooperative doctorate has been assigned, and in cases concerning good scientific practice, the ombudsperson for good scientific practice of the relevant universities and the ombudsperson for good scientific practice of the German Research Foundation (DFG) can be addressed.

Research Campus of Central Hessen:

Prof. Katja Fiehler (JLU)
Prof. Gabriele Taentzer (UMR)
Prof. Birgit Wolf (THM)

Philipps-UniversitätMarburg:

Ombudspersons

Examination Board for Natural Sciences

Examination Board for Medicine

Examination Board for Economics

Justus Liebig University Giessen

Ombudsperson

Examination Board for Natural Sciences

Examination Board for Veterinary Medicine

Examination Board for Economics