Doctoral studies: Official certification of educational documents

All educational documents and their translations that the applicant wishes to attach to the application must be officially certified according to the instructions below. Please go through the instructions carefully before submitting your attachments.

The instructions are valid during the 2026 admission rounds to doctoral programmes at JYU.

Country-specific document requirements

The way in which educational documents and translations are certified and submitted depends on the country that awarded the degree. First check whether your documents are subject to a country-specific requirement. If you are applying with a degree from a Finnish higher education institution, please note the country-specific requirement for Finland.

Country-specific document requirements

If there is no country-specific requirement for the country where the awarding institution is located, please submit your educational documents and translations according to the instructions below.

If only one document (e.g. transcript, copy of diploma or translation) is mentioned in the country-specific requirement, the other required educational documents and translations must be submitted according to the instructions below.

Educational documents on paper

The documents sent by postal mail must be either officially certified photocopies of the original documents or the original official documents. An officially certified copy of the educational document can be issued by the educational institution that awarded the degree.

Please note that JYU does not return application attachments to the applicants. Therefore, please do not send an original official document to us in case it is the only copy you have.

We accept photocopies that bear the original stamp of the awarding institution and the original signature of the certifying university official. Scanned stamps and signatures do not suffice.

Please check that the document meets the following requirements before sending it:

The copy is taken directly from the original document.
It includes every page of the original.
Each page bears the original official stamp of the awarding institution (a scanned stamp or a generic “certified true copy” stamp is not accepted), or the pages are joined together by an official element so that the stamp authenticates all pages of the document as a whole.
The copy bears the official original signature of the certifying officer (a scanned signature is not sufficient) on at least one page.

The process of having a photocopy legalised varies depending on whether the awarding country is a signatory to the Hague Convention of 1961.

Member states of the convention and authorities issuing Apostille Certificates in these countries

Legalisation by Apostille

If the document has been issued by an educational institution or competent authority in a country that ratified the 1961 Hague Convention, an apostille certificate (stamp or paper certificate) is used. Please visit the HCCH website for the list of the member countries and competent authorities that issue Apostille Certificates.

Please note that the document you sent us must bear the original apostille (unless a country-specific requirement dictates otherwise). The apostille must be placed directly on the document itself or on an extension attached to the document in a way that certifies all pages.

Double legalisation

If the the country in question is not party to the Apostille Convention, the copies must first be legalised by the foreign ministry (or, in some cases, by another relevant ministry) of the issuing country. Afterwards, a competent Finnish Embassy or Finnish Consulate of that country must legalise the document, certifying the competence of the foreign ministry official. Please make sure to follow this exact order as it is critical.

Electronic educational documents

We may be able to accept electronic documents if they have been submitted either through a recognised verification service or via email by the issuing institution. Electronic documents may be accepted only if there is no country-specific requirement or if the requirement specifically permits electronic documents.

We accept official electronic educational documents from the following recognised sources. The email address to use for sending documents is doctoral-admissions@jyu.fi.

Digitary
Gradintelligence
My eQuals
National Student Clearinghouse
Parchment Exchange
Truecopy

If the issuing institution has a contract with one of the service providers, please request for your documents to be submitted to doctoral-admissions@jyu.fi through the service. Please make sure that the full contents of the documents are verifiable.

If your institution uses a service not listed above, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to accept your documents. Nonetheless, you can ask the awarding institution to submit the documents to us through the service. The verifiability of the documents will be assessed case by case. We may not be able to verify the documents if, for example, the service is not available in English.

We only accept educational documents sent by email directly from the educational institution that awarded the degree. You can request for the issuing institution to email your educational documents directly to adoctoral-admissions@jyu.fi. We recommend using our secure email service.

Sending confidential message to JYU.pdf

The email must be sent from an official email address of the issuing institution, and we must be able to verify the address from their official website. If the website is not available in English, Finnish or Swedish, or if the address is not listed on the website, we may not be able to verify the sender.

Official Translations

If your educational documents are issued in a language other than English, Finnish, or Swedish, an official translation to one of these languages is required. Please notice that you are required to submit a certified copy of the original language version as well. But however, if the degree-awarding institution customarily issues official educational documents in several languages, the English language version will suffice by itself. A separate translation is not required.

To be accepted, the translation must be exact and done either by the awarding institutionoran official translator. It cannot be done by you, the applicant.

The document submitted to JYU can be either the original official translation or a certified copy of the original translation. The document must bear the original stamp and signature of the awarding institution, official translator, or the certifying officer. If the translation has more than one page, there must be a stamp or signature on each page. If the pages are double-sided, each side must be stamped and signed.

The official translation must be an accurate translation of the original document. Translations made by the applicant themselves will not be accepted.

Country-specific requirements may also apply to official translations.

If the translation has been issued by the degree-awarding institution, the document can be submitted electronically (see Electronic educational documents).

Doctoral studies: Official certification of educational documents

Table of contents

The instructions are valid during the 2026 admission rounds to doctoral programmes at JYU.

Country-specific document requirements

Educational documents on paper

Official certification by the awarding institution

Legalisation of documents

Finnish Notary Public

Electronic educational documents

Verification services

Email delivery

Electronic signature

Official Translations