Contents
The PhD dissertation may be written as a monograph or as a compendium of several shorter scientific or academic papers. It is up to the PhD Student, in cooperation with his/her Supervisor, to decide the type of dissertation. We recommend to make this decision early on in the doctoral process.
Monograph
A monograph is a unified text describing a specialist topic in detail written by a single author. A doctoral dissertation written as a monograph is structured in various chapters with an introduction and a conclusion, and the PhD-candidate is the sole author. Historically, a monograph was the preferred form of doctoral dissertation, and it still is in some academic fields.
Collection of articles
Collection of articles is the most common type of dissertation in economics today and it is becoming increasingly common also in fields that have previously been dominated by the monograph.
There are no absolute requirements in the DELoS regulations as concerns number of articles, length of summary article, etc. However, a minimum of three articles plus a section clarifying how they are interrelated (often called a summary article).
If any of the articles is written in cooperation with others, the PhD Candidate must follow the rules and regulations concerning co-authorship. If the thesis mainly consists of articles, the PhD Candidate should normally be the main author or first author of at least half the articles. A written statement from each co-author should follow the dissertation, detailing each author’s contribution. The PhD Candidate’s independent contribution should be identifiable.
Last update
29.06.2022