No

You must submit an application for assessment of eligibility for a doctoral program to the Faculty in order to enroll in doctoral studies. Once you have received confirmation from our Faculty, you can take this to the Registrar's Office and enroll.

No, you need the supervision agreement. This means that you cannot enroll until, at the latest, after two years, which reflect the training period.

You will need a letter by your supervising professor, in which the reasons for your surpassing the twelve semester mark are given and in which your re-enrollment is being endorsed. This letter must then be sent to our faculty's dean. If our faculty deems the reasoning sufficient, a letter for the Registrar's Office will be drawn up by our Office for Doctoral Studies and, after the dean has signed it, it will be sent there. Your supervising professor will also receive a copy of this letter.

You need to find a professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering to be your supervisor.

Please directly contact the respective professors. You can find an overview of all professors on our Faculty's homepage.

That isn't necessary, but you should discuss details with your supervisor.

The Office for Doctoral Studies does not have a separate mailbox. You have the possibility to hand in documents at the reception of the building during the usual opening hours. Please note that only an acceptance can take place there, no content or formal examination. As an alternative, please use the postal route in addition to the personal appointment (ticket system).

The postal address is:

RWTH Aachen University
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Office for Doctoral Studies
52056 Aachen

Please use the information on the following web pages:

https ://www.rwth-aachen.de/cms/root/Studium/Nach-dem-Studium/Promotion/Informationen-fuer-Promovierende/Internationale-Promovierende/~cgex/Bewerbung-fuer-die-Promotion /

https ://www.rwth-aachen.de/cms/root/Studium/Lehre/PuL-Projekt/~dxla/RWTHonline/

If you have a degree in a program that is not explicitly listed in our doctoral regulations under § 8 paragraph (6) or paragraph (7), your supervisor must fill out the Excel table available under the downloads for the purpose of focus verification. In this table, all modules from your Bachelor's and Master's program including credit points must be listed. The table is divided into three categories: "Engineering", "Mathematics/Sciences" and "No assignment". Based on the totals, it is easy to calculate in which area the focus lies. The Excel-Tabel must then be sent to us by e-mail by your supervisor for the purpose of checking in the original together with the module handbooks (Bachelor and Master).

Please note that your supervisor must already perform the relevancy in advance, i.e. before you are possibly hired and before you submit the application for checking the admission requirements. If this is not done, it could happen that the doctoral committee rejects your admission.

Your supervisor is welcome to provide us with arguments that support her or his assessment when submitting the table and module handbooks. Please note: a total of approx. 60% "engineering sciences" or "natural sciences" must be demonstrated. In addition, the core subjects of mechanical engineering (for courses that can basically be assigned to mechanical engineering) should be represented by approx. 30% in any case. Similarly, for other fields of study, such as electrical engineering or civil engineering, the corresponding core subjects must be taken into account.

You need the Diplom certificate and transcript or the Master's certificate and transcript along with the Bachelor's certificate and transcript. The documents must be officially notarized.

Documents from RWTH Aachen University do not have to be certified - it is sufficient if they are presented as originals.

Yes, but this only concerns documents from RWTH Aachen University.

In this case, you will need a special evaluation pursuant to Section 8 (8) of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering doctoral degree regulations. Furthermore, you must acknowledge the specific requirements for admission pertaining to “non-engineers,” which can be found on our faculty website, by signing and submitting them.

In this case, you will also need a special evalutaion pursuant to Section 8 (8) of the faculty's doctoral degree regulations.

Yes, the course requirements to be fulfilled must amount to at least eight credits, or 8 SWS, and have to be chosen from among the list of examination subjects found on the faculty home page. One subject must be from the group of fundamental subjects, while the other subject, or subjects, may be chosen from either fundamental subjects or technical subjects.

Take the letter you received from our faculty to the different institutes. They will have received a copy from our doctoral studies office and will thus be already informed. You will be able to take the exams; and afterwards you will receive a notification from them whether you passed or not. This transcript of grades must then be forwarded to our Office for Doctoral Studies.

This path of action is highly irregular. Should the Faculty Council or Council of Elders not accept the particular subjects but reject them, you will have taken the exams in vain.

No, in that case, a confirmation issued by the personnel department of the RWTH Aachen Univerity is sufficient. If you are not employed here at the university anymore, however, you will have to apply for a new certificate of good conduct and then submit the issued certificate and receipt along with the application for admission to the doctoral examination here at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Office for Doctoral Studies.

Please use the general postal address of the Office of Doctoral Studies:

RWTH Aachen University
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Office of Doctoral Studies
52056 Aachen

What is meant by that are any copies of pre-publications that are connected to your dissertation, that is to say where parts of your dissertation are published beforehand. Please come to an agreement with your supervising professor if you are unsure about this. Pursuant to Section 5 (3) of our faculty's doctoral degree regulations your mentor has to advise the dean of any pre-publications.

Yes, our faculty requires abstracts in both languages – no more than a printed page in length each. The mandatory copies of your all dissertations (preliminary and deposit copies)must contain these abstracts.

You can decide for yourself whether the abstracts shall be at the beginning or at the end in the your dissertation.

As the dean of our Faculty cannot check all of the dissertations, the process is a bit different. You speak with your readers and work their changes into the dissertation. You can then print the mandatory copies. 

First you hand in one printed and one electronic copy at the university library. With the certificate you receive there, you then submit an electronic copy to the doctoral office. We will then forward the electronic version to the reporters, who must confirm its accuracy on a form. Only then can the doctoral certificate be issued by the doctoral office of our faculty. This will then be sent to you via registered mail.

Yes, you can find the relevant information on their website. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the staff of the department "Services for Scientific Publishing". 

That depends on when the reporters return the forms they received, confirming the dissertation is correct, to the Faculty's Office for Doctoral Studies. The dean and rector must then sign the certificate. The whole process takes around four weeks.

Yes, just let us know when you are dropping off the dissertation copy at the Office for Doctoral Studies.

The Office of Doctoral Studies does not have a separate mailbox. You have the possibility to drop off documents at the reception of the building during the usual opening hours. Please note that only an acceptance can take place there, no content or formal examination. Alternatively, please use the postal route in addition to the personal appointment (ticket system).

The postal address is:

RWTH Aachen University
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Office of Doctoral Studies
52056 Aachen

Yes, you will automatically receive an English transcript with the original certificate. A translation of the complete text is not possible, the following must remain unchanged

• the degree awarded
• the subject of the thesis (except for English titles)

The grade is provided in the Latin - and therefore internationally common - form.

In principle, the German certificate represents the original. The English version is recognizable as a partial translation. The English Transcript will have original signatures, but will not contain a seal.