Internal Procedures and Recommendations Regarding the Defense

Detailed information regarding the doctoral thesis defense is available in MU Study and Examination Regulations . This page only presents internal procedures and recommendations regarding the defenses:

• The Doctoral dissertation thesis is submitted by the student either in the form of a monograph, including the student's original results, or as a collection of published or accepted scientific articles with a detailed unifying introduction. In the first case, the length of the monograph should usually be at least 80 pages, excluding the references and possible appendix material. In the second case, the unifying introduction of the collection of articles should be around 20–30 pages long (we do not specify a hard lower page limit on the articles since papers in CS are often published in a very “condensed” format). For dissertations designed as an introductory text with attached copies of the articles, it is necessary to submit together with the dissertation the statement of at least the key co-authors of the attached articles and supervisor (for more details, see SZŘ MU section 31, paragraph 4b). If the thesis contains results or articles with co-authors, the student must clearly state their share of the work on the results or articles (in CS, the order of co-authors is often just alphabetical).
• There are two additional necessary prerequisites for the dissertation thesis defense:

Internal reader - a student who plans to submit a phd thesis in the current year will inform the Office for Doctoral and International Studies - sendig abstract and list of publications. This office will arrange the process by asking the Chairmen of the Doctoral Board and Doctoral Committees who subsequently determine an internal reader (it may be an internal reader of phd thesis proposal), who reads the doctoral thesis and gives his/her opinion before the official handover. Student then according to that opinion and observations may modify or revise the doctoral thesis and submit it later.
New as due to update from October 2020: it is a student's choice whether to use the offer of service of an internal reader. It is a service of the faculty for students, students are no longer obliged to use this offer.

Please note that it usually takes about 4 - 5 months from submission of your PhD thesis to the defense.

The doctoral study ends on the day of a successful defence. Student is awarded a Diploma and a  Diploma Supplement at a graduation ceremony organised by the RMU twice a year (usually at the beginning of December and at the end of May). Please check regularly your emails at mail.muni.cz, where Ms. Jitka Šnejdrlová will send you information about a graduation ceremony. If a student is unable to attend a graduation ceremony, please inform her at: jsnejdrlova(at)rect.muni.cz .

If the thesis review conclusions, specified in Article 32, paragraph 5 of the MU Study and Examination Regulations, contain one or more negative statements the student may choose not to participate in the thesis defense. This intention must be announced no later than 5 workdays prior to the date of the defense. The student may choose not to participate in the thesis defense no more than once.

If a student fails a defense, it is possible to repeat a defence no more than once. The committee sets the rules for the repeated defense and the Dean sets following a recommendation of the Specialist Board, an alternate date of a repeated defense. It is also permitted to interrupt studies until the alternate defense day. Permission to interrupt studies is given by the Dean (upon the student’s request) and the interruption of studies is not counted into the whole period of studies.