PROTOCOL FOR THE TOPIC PRESENTATION (DSLLCS SLCS)
1. The doctoral student is required to take the course entitled Topic presentation in the second semester. (Optionally, they may complete the course entitled Topic introduction in the first semester as a preparation for this course.)
2. After consulting the subprogramme directors (SPD), the programme director (PD) decides about the date and venue of the Topic presentation and notifies the secretary of the doctoral school (SDS), who sends out the information to the doctoral school, not later than by the end of the semester. The Topic presentation is organised in the exam period. In duly justified cases, it may take place in late August. (NB. Subprogrammes may decide to organize the topic presentation collectively. In this case, the date and venue are agree upon after the subprogramme directors’ consultation.)
3. Attendance at the Topic presentation is compulsory for the supervisors and subprogramme directors concerned (in case the latter are unable to attend or are involved as supervisors, they can be replaced by a supervisor who is uninvolved), the reviewers appointed by the programme, as well as for first and second year PhD students.
4. The topic presentation consists of the 20 to 30-minute long presentation of the doctoral student (the exact duration is decided by the subprogramme) and the discussion afterwards. The presentation should introduce the main hypotheses and the intellectual trajectory of the proposed dissertation, as well as its theoretical framework, offering also a survey of the relevant secondary literature and of the analytical strategies to be used. The presentation is followed by a debate and an official evaluation.
5. The evaluation is the responsibility of a committee consisting of the chair and the two assigned reviewers. In case there are a large number of topic presentations on the same day, there may be an overlap in the given roles, the evaluation may be undertaken by a combined committee that also includes the supervisors. A detailed oral evaluation – including the specification of the grade – is offered by the committee at the end of each debate or at the end of the event.