Betreuung und Begutachtung von Dissertationen vereint oder getrennt
Alexander Dilger
July 2025

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Abstract

Supervision and Review of Dissertations Combined or Separately

Traditionally, the supervision and review of dissertations at German universities are intertwined. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the state government intends to prohibit this by law in the future, or to permit it only in exceptional cases upon a justified request from doctoral candidates. However, this will neither lead to better dissertation reviews nor better protection for doctoral candidates; rather, it will result in the loss of important information and incentives for supervisors. The additionally planned requirement to prepare second and follow-up reviews without knowledge of the previous reviews also deprives the reviewers of valuable information and impairs academic discourse.