PhD Submission Process

There are principally three things that you need to check before you submit your PhD thesis:

1. that you understand the copyright rules, and other restrictions on use, that may apply to your research project;
2. that you have all the documents that you are required to submit along with your dissertation;
3. that you have an active Pure profile; i.e. that you can log into Pure.

Copyright Rules

As a guiding principle, SDU expects all PhD students to publish their theses electronically on SDU’s Research Portal. (LINK) The reasoning behind this is that your PhD project has been funded by public means and that it should therefore be made available to the public.

In some cases, however, it is not legal for the PhD student and SDU to publish the dissertation online due to copyright restrictions.

Most often this will be the case if you have written an article-based PhD thesis and published in one or more journals that do not allow you to make your articles publicly available. Many journals allow you to e-publish some version of your article (e.g. the submitted manuscript or the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript), but other journals do not, and it is therefore important that you check the copyright rules that apply to your journal articles.

Similarly, if you have unpublished manuscripts that you have either submitted or plan to submit to a journal, you should check the journal’s copyright policy so that you know if you will have the right to e-publish your manuscript on SDU’s Research Portal, and if so under what conditions.

In addition, you may have a valid reason for not wanting to e-publish your PhD thesis, if you have written a monographic dissertation with the intention of publishing it as a book.

Please note that even if you are unable to e-publish your full dissertation due to copyright issues, SDU still expects PhD students to publish as much of their work as possible. In most cases, this means providing an abbreviated version of the thesis with copyrighted articles removed.

Other Restrictions on Use

Copyright rules are not the only restrictions on use that may apply to your PhD thesis and prohibit its publication on SDU’s Research Portal. For instance, if your thesis contains sensitive personal data that cannot be anonymized; if it contains classified information that poses a security risk; or if it involves confidential information protected by non-disclosure agreements, it will not be legal to publish your full PhD thesis on the Research Portal.

Required Documents and Attachments

Before you submit your PhD thesis, you should also make sure that you have obtained all the

documents you are required to upload along with your dissertation. Exactly what documents are required will depend on the PhD school in which you are enrolled, but typical examples include:

• a supervisor statement
• an activity overview
• declarations of co-authorship, in case you have written one or more articles in collaboration with other researchers as part of your PhD thesis

Since all PhD schools at SDU require their students to hand in administrative documents and/or other attachments along with their PhD theses, it is important that you prepare these in advance. Declarations of co-authorship, for example, can take a lot of time to collect but are mandatory to attach when you submit your PhD thesis.

For a list of the documents required by each PhD school at SDU, see the links below:

TEK:

https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/phd/phd_skoler/phdtek/phdstudietsforloebindhold/afslutning-af-ph,-d-,d,-d-,-uddannelsen/thesis_requirements_and_submission

SAMF:

https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/phd/phd_skoler/phduddannelsen_under_samfundsvidenskab/erdustuderende/uddafslutningstuderende/indlevering

NAT:

https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/phd/phd_skoler/naturvidenskabelig_phd_uddannelse/uddannelsens_afslutning/indlevering

SUND:

https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/phd/phd_skoler/phdskolensundhedsvidenskab/phd_students/submission_assessment_and_defence/submitting#mandatoryattachments

HUM:

https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/phd/phd_skoler/phd_humaniora/afslutning_studiet#afleveringsvejledning

Check Your Log-In to Pure

Finally, since you will submit your PhD thesis in the Pure system, you should check that you have an active Pure profile and that you can log in successfully.

If you encounter any issues logging into Pure, please contact the PhD support team for assistance:

Email: phdsubmission@bib.sdu.dk

Phone: 65 50 75 37

Submission in Pure

Once you have compiled all the necessary documents and made sure that you can log into Pure, the submission process is straightforward: You simply log into Pure, go to the PhD submission module, fill out the submission form, upload your files and complete the submission. (For a step-by-step guide, see “How to Submit Your PhD Thesis.”)

SDU’s Screening for Plagiarism

You can submit your PhD thesis in Pure right up until the submission deadline, but please note that the submission is not complete until it has undergone SDU’s mandatory plagiarism screening. (In that case, your PhD will be recorded as handed in on time, despite the formal submission occurring after the submission deadline.)

The plagiarism screening thus constitutes a separate stage in the submission process, and the screening can result in one of the following colour-coded conclusions:

Green: No issues detected. The dissertation will be submitted for assessment.

Yellow: There are issues that need to be fixed or addressed. In most cases, this means that the screening has found a small number of passages where the dissertation uses previously published text without adequate referencing. The dissertation must be revised and resubmitted for another plagiarism check, or the principal supervisor must state that no further action is required.

Red: Potential plagiarism detected. The PhD support team will contact the PhD school and the principal supervisor, who will determine the appropriate course of action. This may involve consultation with the Dean and the Committee on Practice at SDU.

Importantly, as your PhD thesis is not formally submitted until it has passed the plagiarism screening, it is crucial that you monitor your email in the days following your upload. This ensures that you can promptly address any issues if your thesis receives a yellow screening result.

The PhD support team endeavours to screen your thesis within two working days.

Once your PhD thesis has successfully passed the plagiarism screening, the PhD support team will forward the thesis to the PhD school, cc’ing both you and your principal supervisor. This completes the submission process.

The PhD school will then send your thesis to the Assessment Committee. According to the Danish Ministerial Order on the PhD Programme (PhD Order), §18, (LINK) the Committee has two months to determine if the thesis meets the criteria for awarding the PhD degree.

If Your Thesis Requires Revisions

If the Assessment Committee determines that your PhD thesis does not meet the criteria, you will typically be given a certain amount of time (e.g. three months) to revise and resubmit it.  The PhD support team will archive the first version, which you will no longer be able to edit. You can then resubmit a new, revised thesis in the same manner as before.

Please note that the time granted for revising your thesis does not extend your employment as a PhD student at SDU.

Thesis Defence and Publication

If the Assessment Committee approves your PhD thesis for public defence, you will receive the Committee’s preliminary assessment, and a defence date will be scheduled by you and/or your PhD school.

According to the PhD Order, §19 (2), PhD theses must be made “available to the public in due time before the defence.” To comply with the PhD Order, SDU will publish your thesis on the Research Portal no less than two weeks before the defence, unless restrictions on use prevent it from being made publicly available.