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Progress Reporting

Doing a PhD is a huge project. Doctoral researchers and their advisors often tend to focus only on the contents of the research that leads to the doctoral thesis. However, there are a lot of other things to be organized, such as getting enrolled in a university, participating in course work, giving presentations at conferences, career development, writing grant applications, etc. Thus, monitoring the progress of the PhD project becomes essential.

In order to assist doctoral researchers and their advisors with progress, doctoral researchers at the UFZ have to submit progress reports biannually to HIGRADE. There are two types of progress reports:

  • PhD reports, which the doctoral researcher sends directly to the HIGRADE office, due 12, 24, 36, ... months after the start of the PhD project and until the project is finalized.
  • Committee reports discussed and agreed on with the advisory committee, due 18 and 30 months after the start of the PhD project.
Progress will be monitored against the time schedule outlined in the PhD project proposal included in the supervision agreement. In addition, doctoral researchers are encouraged to present their work at least annually to their department and advisory committees. Doctoral researchers in their third year have the opportunity to present their results to the entire UFZ audience at the HIGRADE Conference .


Templates for the supervision agreement and committee reports can be found via the UFZ Intranet ( link ) and in our database myHIGRADE ( link ). The PhD report is accessible via an online questionnaire and a link will be send to the doctoral researcher when the deadline is approaching.

Reporting