Dissertation requirements
General dissertation requirements
A dissertation is a comprehensive, research-based scientific presentation in the doctoral candidate’s field of study. It represents the candidate’s ability to independently and critically apply the methods of scientific research and create new scientific knowledge.
A dissertation must meet the following scientific criteria and requirements for learning and competence. A dissertation must:
- include new scientific knowledge and substantiated results as well as be scientifically convincing;
- demonstrate the candidate’s critical thinking, profound knowledge of the research field, command of scientific research methods and ability to apply them as well as
- be scientifically honest and follow the norms of research integrity.
A dissertation can take the form of an article-based dissertation or a monograph. Because of the practices of its disciplines, the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics (JSBE) can also accept a dissertation that corresponds in form and requirements to an article-based dissertation and consists of unpublished scientific manuscripts and a summarising report. The extent of the doctoral candidates’ independent work must be identifiable in all dissertations.
A dissertation begins with a short abstract (1 page) that must (when applicable) include the dissertation’s aims or research questions, main research methods, results and conclusions based on them. The abstract will be written in the same language as the dissertation as well as in Finnish and English.
The University of Jyväskylä provides supervision for doctoral dissertations to be completed at the University of Jyväskylä. The content and subject of the dissertation are limited so that it is possible for students to complete the dissertation in three to four years when studying full-time. Dissertation supervisors must ensure the manuscript’s quality and the implementation of the dissertation requirements before a preliminary examination.
The University of Jyväskylä promotes responsible and open science in doctoral research. Dissertations and articles of article-based dissertations are stored in the open JYX repository in accordance with the University’s publishing principles.
It must be mentioned at end of the description of the author’s independent contribution if artificial intelligence (AI) based applications have been used in the doctoral dissertation. If they have been used, this must be described in accordance with the University’s guidelines and policies.
These requirements apply to all faculties,which consequently do not have their own requirements for dissertations. The faculties can, however, provide field-specific instructions, but those instructions cannot contradict these requirements.
Dissertations completed at the University of Jyväskylä are published in the JYU Dissertations publication series. You can familiarise yourself with the dissertations in the Jyväskylä University Digital Repository JYX.
The publication and publicity of doctoral dissertations are governed by the Principles of publishing at the University of Jyväskylä.
Instructions on how to use artificial intelligence in your studies and research can be found on the Intranet Uno.
Article-based dissertations
An article-based dissertation consists of articles which discuss the same set of problems and a summarising report of the articles written by the doctoral candidate.
It demonstrates the candidate’s ability to independently and critically apply the methods of scientific research and generate new scientific knowledge through at least two, but typically three to four scientific publications or manuscripts. The dissertation can consist of peer-reviewed scientific articles which have been published or accepted for publication, or previously unpublished manuscripts under scientific peer review or ready to be submitted for the peer review process. However, an article-based dissertation cannot include only manuscripts that have not yet been published or approved for publication. All article-based dissertations must therefore have at least one peer-reviewed article which has been published or accepted for publication.
When assessing the number of articles and manuscripts sufficient for an article dissertation, the dissertation supervisors must take into account the proportion of the author’s independent work in them as well as the (a) extent, (b) scientific quality and significance, and (c) publication type (publication type A of the publication classification of the Ministry of Education and Culture).
The summarising report of an article-based dissertation should present the set of questions connecting the articles, the research’s link to relevant literature, its theoretical framework and the methodological solutions. The summarising report should also combine the main results and conclusions of the sub-studies and assess their impact. The summarising report must be balanced and drawn up on the basis of the articles and possible manuscripts included in the dissertation, as well as literature. It does not have to include new scientific knowledge that has not been presented in the articles.
An article-based dissertation can include publications and manuscripts with multiple authors. The contribution of the doctoral candidate’s independent work to the joint publication to be included in the dissertation must be clearly described. In the dissertation’s summarising report the doctoral candidate provides an explanation of extent of their independent contribution to each joint publication. It is recommended that the candidate submit a draft report describing their own contribution to the other authors of the articles and manuscripts.
For justified reasons, a single publication may be used in more than one dissertation if the authors have made independent contributions to the article. This must be noted in the description of the candidate’s independent contribution.
In the article-based dissertation’s articles and manuscripts written as a doctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, the connection to the University of Jyväskylä is clarified in the affiliation information in accordance with the University’s publishing principles.
If the same publication has been used for more than one dissertation, the description of the candidate’s independent contribution must note that the publication has been used for more than one dissertation.
The dissertation may also include articles that have been published under a different affiliation. This could be the case if the research was conducted elsewhere before the start of doctoral studies at JYU.
Monograph dissertations
A monograph dissertation is a previously unpublished, comprehensive dissertation based on scientific research work in the author’s name.
A previously published work cannot be accepted as a monograph dissertation. The author of the dissertation, however, can publish articles on the dissertation subject before the actual dissertation is completed, to which they may refer in their dissertation.