Selection procedures and admission to the PhD degree

Application procedure

Candidates submit their application to the programme in response to a call for PhD student projects together with a motivation statement explaining why they want to do their doctoral thesis within the respective PhD programme topic and on the respective project and what qualifies them for it. Candidates are required to name two referees, who agreed to provide an assessment of the candidate’s qualification and potential.

The general admission requirements for applicants are:

• Graduation from the medical degree programme (Bachelor and Master’s degree) at the Karl Landsteiner Private University of Health Sciences or another Austrian University, or
• graduation from a medical or dentistry degree programme from an Austrian University (Bachelor and Master’s or diploma or doctoral study of human medicine), or
• graduation from a Bachelor and Master’s (or diploma) programme in Life Sciences at an Austrian University including (but not limited to) biology, chemistry, physics, microbiology, molecular biology, biotechnology, molecular medicine, pharmacy, zoology, veterinary medicine, psychology, neuropsychology, psychotherapy studies, statistics, informatics, or
• graduation from a relevant or related degree programme at a recognized domestic or foreign post-secondary educational institution, equivalent in content and scope to an undergraduate (diploma or Bachelor and Master’s) degree (applying the concept of the Lisbon recognition convention).
• In the case where the applicant has not yet obtained specific theoretical knowledge and/or methodological or basic scientific skills, which are essential for addressing the questions of the research project, admission may be granted on a preliminary basis. This applies only if the lacking knowledge can be acquired within two semesters of preliminary admission by successfully passing courses at a recognized domestic or foreign post-secondary educational institution.

Two-stage pre-selection procedure

In a first step, the top candidates will be selected for further consideration based on three main criteria:

• scientific knowledge and skills (scientific competences)
• attitude, expectations, and visions (project competences)
• interaction with team members and supervisors (social competences)

In the second step, the referees will be contacted for obtaining references, which will be compared with the results of the initial evaluation (first step). The applicants will be ranked based on the combined evaluation results and the best fitting candidates for each project will be invited to a competitive applicant hearing.

Applicant hearing

The hearing consists of two presentations by each candidate, a 10 min journal club on a paper selected by the faculty and a 10 min presentation of the candidate’s previous research experience (e.g., Master thesis). The candidates will discuss the proposed projects with their selected PIs and will have ample time for meeting lab members and PhD students of the respective labs. At the end of the hearing and after consultation of the PI with his/her lab members, the best-fitting candidate in terms of scientific, project-related, and social competences will be offered to enter the 6-month orientation phase.

Orientation and initiation phase and kick-off symposium

PhD students accepted into an individual PhD programme will enter a 6-month orientation phase. During this time the students will acquire the basic scientific and methodological expertise and will, together with their supervisor, conceive the project plan of their PhD research project. Also, they will commence their course work and conduct 1-day-long visits at all participating organizational units/research laboratories. After 5 months, the PhD students submit a written 5-page thesis project proposal and present their hypothesis and project plan at kick-off symposium in front of their peers and the faculty. There, their comprehensions of their research topics, including the pertinent literature, and the scientific quality and feasibility of their research plan will be discussed with the faculty and peers. If successful, their PhD student status will be confirmed, the PhD students and advisors sign the study agreement.