Publishing your doctoral thesis
Instructions for preparing your doctoral thesis for publication and printing, and information on archiving
Doctoral thesis at 911±¬ÁÏÍø
On this page you will find resources and guidelines for doctoral students and information on working on your doctoral theses at 911±¬ÁÏÍø.
Loading table of contents
The research plan is the basis for thesis work. Doctoral students follow the general quality requirements for doctoral theses at 911±¬ÁÏÍø and the possible School-specific guidelines.
Doctoral theses are published in the 911±¬ÁÏÍø publication series and are publicly available.
The topic and language of thesis
The topic of your doctoral thesis must be approved by the Doctoral Programme Committee of your School. The topic is approved when you are admitted to the programme (except at the School of Business where the topic is decided at a later stage).
The language of instruction of Aalto doctoral programmes is, in principle, English but the doctoral thesis can also be written in Finnish or Swedish (in the field of business only in English or Finnish). Normally, the language of your degree is the language in which you write your thesis (English, Finnish or Swedish).
You can view your approved thesis topic and thesis language on the MyStudies student portal. From the top bar menu, choose the Thesis tab and "Doctoral" to see your thesis information.
If your topic changes, the change must be approved by the Doctoral Programme Committee. Always discuss the changes with your supervising professor first. If the research focus doesn't drastically change, you can modify the title of the thesis or the research plan without an official approval.
In case of a major change in your research topic, it is possible that your supervising professor and research field also changes.
Submit the application to your Doctoral programme's Doctoral Education Services (aalto.fi)
The form "Change of supervision professor, thesis advisor, research field or mode of study" is available at Doctoral student forms (aalto.fi).
Multidisciplinary doctorates at Aalto schools
Students applying for doctoral studies normally apply to the doctoral programme of the school, with the additional provision that in the schools of technology, the supervising professor must be contacted before applying. The school that accepts the student into its doctoral programme is known as the ‘host school’, and its rules and procedures are followed.
For the student’s multidisciplinary doctoral thesis, the entire advisory team needs to meet to discuss what will be entered into the doctoral personal study plan (DPSP) prior to its approval. Particular care must be taken to agree on the which tasks and communication methods will be used between the two supervising professors and all the thesis advisors. According to the current guidelines, the DPSP is updated twice a year, either in My Dialogues discussions (if the doctoral student is employed at Aalto) or at the start of the term.
Both supervising professors should meet with the doctoral student at the same time, and all doctoral thesis advisors need to be informed of any updated matters. The supervising professors decide on the doctoral student’s funding arrangements before signing the DPSP, and they inform the thesis advisors accordingly.
The schools are responsible for the preliminary examination of the thesis, each in their respective area for the parts requiring special academic or scientific expertise. ARTS is thus responsible for pre-examination of the artistic portions. If ARTS is included as the secondary school in a multidisciplinary thesis, an ARTS representative must be invited to the doctoral programme committee (DPC) meeting when deciding on the pre-examiners, on approval of the pre-examination, and on matters relating to the public defence (thesis opponents and their statement). Conversely, if ARTS is the host school and the ARTS doctoral student’s thesis involves another school, a representative of that school must be invited to the DPC meeting of ARTS to participate in the decision making on the pre-examination, its approval and decisions relating to the public defence.
For multidisciplinary theses, it is recommended that thesis opponents be appointed from both research areas. The degree certificate is awarded by the school where the doctoral student is enrolled. The second school is mentioned in the certificate in the same way it would be if it were a foreign university in a cotutelle agreement.
The funding received by the schools for multidisciplinary doctoral degrees is in accordance with the university’s funding model and is allocated between the schools based on an agreed percentage.
Adding key terms to the term bank
Please note that it is highly recommended that all doctoral students ensure that the key terminology of their doctoral thesis is also available in Finnish and/or Swedish in the . These key terms should be made available during their doctoral studies, and no later than the start of the pre-examination. This recommendation is currently in a testing period.
See more information and further instructions on how to do this.
Support for thesis writing
Note that the referencing and writing style conventions depend on the research field. Discuss about the preferred styles and formats with your thesis advisor(s).
Resources and tools
You can write your thesis using the Word or LaTeX templates available via the links below. You can also use your own style or adapt some previously used thesis layout. You should use the uniform title and abstract pages available as separate Word documents, or included in the Word writing template.
- You can download the mandatory title and abstract Word templates from Unigrafia’s web page (unigrafia.fi), or you can use the direct links to the templates in , and (unigrafia.fi)
- You can download the accessible Word writing templates in English, Finnish and Swedish from Unigrafia’s web page (unigrafia.fi), or you can use the direct link to the Word template in (unigrafia.fi). This writing template also includes the title and abstract pages.
- (Aalto LaTeX pages in wiki) – The LaTeX template is not exactly identical with the Word template. You can use it anyway.
Doctoral students at 911±¬ÁÏÍø publish their thesis through the Aalto Publication Platform. Doctoral students at Aalto ARTS may also apply to publish their thesis through Aalto ARTS Books. The 911±¬ÁÏÍø publication platform generates the standard front and back covers to the doctoral theses. The platform also generates the title pages and the abstract pages for the doctoral thesis.
You can find samples of correctly formatted theses in this section. Check them to see how the page layout and page numbering is done - you can also see how a thesis looks when it is ready.
Reference management
EndNote is a tool for recording, saving and utilizing bibliographic citations otherwise known as references. It allows users to collect, write, import, organise, and format references. Users can also collaborate and share references with other users having access to the same reference management software. 911±¬ÁÏÍø has a full licence for reference management tool EndNote for our students, academic and other staff members.
Reference Management Software EndNote
Copyright issues
If the thesis contains material that has already been published (such as pictures) the doctoral student should refer to it appropriately and obtain the required copyrights, when necessary.
Copyrights should also be obtained for the separate publications included in an article thesis. Publications in an electronic form should be equivalent in content with the printed publications.
Answers to copyright-related questions can be found in and .
See more at the section Research integrity: Responsible conduct of research
Patents nor standards may not be used as publications of an article-based thesis. Patents and standards are important results of research work, but their publication practices may be in conflict with the principles of scientific publication. Patents can be presented in the summary, and if necessary, be appended to the thesis.
Researcher skills for doctoral students
Find resources to improve your skills related to data management, research ethics, IPR, dissemination of results and more!
How to use Turnitin to improve and protect your doctoral thesis?
The idea of scientific writing with references and source information is to show your own contribution (new research results) in relation to what was already known.
The requirement is that you write in your own words and give credit to the authors of the sources you have utilized. Besides being a skill, this requirement is also an ethical principle. Disregarding this principle means, for example, unacknowledged borrowing or plagiarism. Plagiarism is not accepted in doctoral theses or any work in your studies or research work. You should practice skilful writing and make sure beforehand that your text follows the good practices of academic writing.
Using Turnitin to identify unintentional plagiarism is highly recommended.
How to start using Turnitin?
The most fruitful way of taking advantage of Turnitin is to use it in co-operation with your supervising professor. Check if your supervising professor already has a dedicated workspace for thesis instruction in . If your supervising professor doesn’t have a workspace, they can order a ready-made .
See detailed instructions from the links below. You will also find there the procedure followed when a student is suspected of plagiarism.
Plagiarism and the responsibilities and rights of Turnitin users
The purpose of using Turnitin for draft versions of the thesis is to improve the doctoral student's scientific writing skills and to prevent unpleasant surprises due to, say, unintentional plagiarism later in the process.
The doctoral student submits a draft version of the thesis in a "Draft" activity in MyCourses. The supervising professor can utilise the Turnitin report for assessing the draft and also to give feedback to the doctoral student using the Turnitin feedback tools (for details, see ) or with some other preferred tool.
The doctoral student can then revise the draft with help of the Turnitin report and the feedback from the supervising professor. It is also possible to get a Turnitin similarity report for your draft on your own; see for independent usage.
The purpose of using Turnitin to check the final version of the thesis manuscript to be sent for pre-examination is to check that the thesis sent to the pre-examiners doesn’t contain plagiarism.
The doctoral student submits the final version of the thesis for pre-examination in the pre-examination activity in MyCourses.
The supervising professor interprets the Turnitin similarity report at the same time they assesses other aspects of the content.
- If the interpretation of the Turnitin report indicates plagiarism, the procedure for handling plagiarism is begun (this unfortunate step is unlikely if Turnitin has been used with the draft versions together with the supervising professor).
- The pre-examiners can be informed that the thesis has been checked for plagiarism.
The purpose of Turnitin usage for the final version of a thesis is twofold:
- to ensure again that there is no plagiarism in the final version (if the previous steps are done with Turnitin, this is highly unlikely and not really required) and
- to ensure that the thesis is protected against plagiarism by others in future. Technically, the aim is to make sure that the final version of the thesis is indexed in the Turnitin repositories one way or another:
- A thesis published in , being an open publication archive, is automatically indexed into the Turnitin repositories (most cases) as Turnitin continually scans the internet for new documents.
An article that is part of the thesis, can also be checked in the same Draft submission boxes in the supervising professor’s or thesis advisor´s workspace. Once the articles are published or accepted to be published or otherwise seen as complete, the next submissions can be made in the same boxes overwriting the earlier submissions. Remember to inform your supervising professor and thesis advisor about it. Please note, that only one article can be submitted for review in each submission box at a time. If multiple articles are completed around the same time, submit each one separately in its own submission box. There are multiple submission boxes available in the workspace. If necessary, your supervising professor or thesis advisor can add more submission boxes to the workspace.
General quality requirements for doctoral theses at 911±¬ÁÏÍø
- A doctoral thesis shall contain new scientific knowledge in the field it represents. In the field of art and design, the doctoral thesis may also contain new methods of artistic creation or products or transactions, which fulfil high artistic demands.
- The doctoral thesis must present the new results clearly and in a manner meeting the criteria set for scientific texts.
- The independent contribution to the research shall be sufficient and clearly demonstrable.
- The research methods used shall fulfil the criteria set for scientific or art-based research.
- A doctoral thesis shall conform to the principles of responsible conduct of research and adhere to ethically sustainable principles.
Doctoral dissertations at 911±¬ÁÏÍø, Decision of the 911±¬ÁÏÍø Academic Affairs Committee, 1 December 2015
Different formats of doctoral theses
Schools may approve doctoral thesis in the forms described below. Schools take the decision on the acceptable formats of thesis and give further guidelines on the requirements for doctoral thesis as needed.
An article-based doctoral thesis consists of a set of publications on a related set of problems, and a summary of the findings.
The articles included in the doctoral thesis are published or submitted for publication in an acknowledged peer-reviewed forum in the discipline (for example, a scientific publication series, conference proceedings or other work). Articles not yet accepted for publication can also be included in the doctoral thesis. The number of publications required for the thesis depends on their extent, scientific significance and quality as well as on the weight of the independent contribution of the doctoral student to the publications.
The articles may also include co-authored publications if the author's independent contribution to them can be demonstrated. An article can be included in several doctoral theses if the separate contribution of the doctoral student can be demonstrated.
The summary of the article-based doctoral thesis is an independent entity, which provides an overview of the thesis contents. The summary shall describe the research problem, research goals and methods, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline. The summary shall contain a list of the publications included in the thesis and describe the independent contribution of the student in each publication separately.
A monograph is a coherent writing based on the work of the doctoral student and written by the student. The monograph may contain references to previous works by the doctoral student on the same topic.
The doctoral thesis describes the research problem, the research goals, the used methods and results, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline.
A research paper-based doctoral thesis consists of scientific essays and a summary. The essays and the summary shall deal with a single research problem or set of problems so that, when viewed as a whole, the independent contribution of the author meets the requirements set for a doctoral thesis.
Each of the essays shall contain new results and viewpoints, and shall primarily be based on independent research by the author, but also collaboratively written essays may be accepted as part of the doctoral thesis if the independent contribution of the author can be clearly demonstrated.
The number of essays required depends on their extent, scientific significance and quality as well as on the weight of the independent contribution of the author to the essays.
The summary describes the research problem, research goals and methods, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline. The summary contains a description of the independent contribution of the author in each of the essays.
At its discretion, the school may also approve as a doctoral thesis some other work meeting corresponding scientific criteria.
Doctoral dissertations at 911±¬ÁÏÍø, Decision of the 911±¬ÁÏÍø Academic Affairs Committee, 1 December 2015
In the field of art and design, a doctoral thesis may also include artistic components such as art productions, series of art productions meaningfully connected to each other, or product development projects. More information is available at the page artistic components (aalto.fi).
School-specific guidelines for doctoral thesis
ARTS: Formats of doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
BIZ: Forms of doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
CHEM: Instructions for doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
ELEC: Forms of doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
ENG: Requirements for doctoral thesis (aalto.fi)
SCI: Forms of doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
Finalising and publishing doctoral thesis
Doctoral students at 911±¬ÁÏÍø publish their thesis through the Aalto Publication Platform. Doctoral theses are public documents by law and available at 911±¬ÁÏÍø's open access repository .
Doctoral thesis: preparation for pre-examination and publication
Preparing for the public defence
Instructions for planning and arranging public defences (for doctoral student and custos)
Awarding doctoral thesis work
Incentive scholarships for doctoral students
500e and 2000e incentive scholarships are awarded by application for doctoral students who meet the conditions given.
Aalto doctoral thesis awards
Top ten percent of doctoral theses are awarded annually at 911±¬ÁÏÍø
Find published doctoral theses
Doctoral theses at 911±¬ÁÏÍø are available in the open access repository maintained by Aalto, Aaltodoc.