The Committee's assessment can lead to three possible recommendations: thesis approved for public defence, rejection and revisions required .

Approved for public defence when the thesis... is considered as an independent and comprehensive scientific work of international standard, where the doctoral candidate satisfies the minimum requirements for research competence (ref. Level requirements). may have weaknesses, but these weaknesses are of such a nature that they can be defended in an oral defence, without being corrected in the evaluated thesis.

Rejection when the thesis... is not considered worthy of a public defence needs fundamental changes to theory, hypotheses, empirical material, methods and/or analysis before it can be recommended for public defence

Revisions required when the thesis... is considered to have substantial flaws that render it not suitable for public defence in its present form. may reach a satisfactory standard if the candidate revises the thesis in accordance with the committee’s specific proposals for amendments. is likely to reach a satisfactory level within a three-month period. Note that it is important to distinguish the scheme with revisions required from the minor revision scheme that applies to journals, so-called revise and resubmit. The threshold for which theses are approved for public defence should not be changed. The scheme is thus intended to concern a small group of theses that would have been rejected with the old system.

SOURCES AND MORE INFORMATION

PhD Regulations (UiB level)

Programme description (faculty level)

Guidelines for evaluation (faculty level)

Part IV. Completion, Section 13. Resubmission for a new assessment

Part IV. Completion, Section 11-4. Minor reworking and rejection of the submitted thesis

Completion, Assessment committee

Part 1: The evaluation committee's assessment fot the thesis. The Committee's recommendation