How to apply for doctoral programmes at Tampere University

1. Carefully read through the admissions requirements and instructions on how to apply for the doctoral programme you are interested in. You can only apply for one doctoral programme at each round.
2. Find a supervisor well in advance for your research topic and reach an agreement on supervision arrangements. You can find contact details on the programme admissions page. If you contact more than one prospective supervisor, please let each of them know who else you have contacted.
3. Fill in the application form during the admissions period at Studyinfo.fi. Upload the required enclosures for the application as instructed. Please see further instructions below.
4. Please make sure that you have received an automatic reply after you have submitted your application. Through the link in the email, you can access your application to make changes or upload new documents during the application period. The link only works once, and you will receive a new automatic reply and link after you submit your application again.
5. If you have completed your previous degrees outside Finland, you must submit officially certified copies of your educational documents to the Admissions Office. Please see the instructions below. 
6. Please check your email regularly as the faculty or the admissions office may contact you regarding your application (please also check your junk mail). The results of the admission will be announced by email as well.
7. If you are asked to submit officially certified copies of your educational documents, please submit them as instructed below.
8. Accept your study place through a link in an email message (sent from Studyinfo.fi), or if you have Finnish electronic banking credentials, please go to My Studyinfo to accept your study place
9. Enrol as a doctoral student to start your studies
10. Familiarise yourself with instructions for a new doctoral student.

• Why do you want to become a doctoral student and complete a doctoral degree?
• In which field do you want to create new knowledge?
• What learning needs do you have in that research field?
• What learning needs do you have on scientific methods?
• Which empirical problem or a question you have in mind for (a) research question(s) and to which scientific field they belong?
• From where and how are you intending to acquire your research data?
• Explore different ways of funding and plan how to fund your research?
• What is your intended schedule for completing your doctoral dissertation, i.e. when do you think you will have your public defence?
• How much of your time are you able to dedicate for your studies and writing your doctoral dissertation?
• How does your work community and your situation in life support your doctoral studies?

You can submit only one online application form, and you are allowed to apply to one doctoral programme at a time. A link to Studyinfo.fi and the electronic application form can be found on the web page of the doctoral programme’s. You will need to upload all application documents below online at Studyinfo.fi.

In addition to uploading the electronic application documents on the application, you must submit the officially certified copies of your educational documents (enclosures 1-5) to Tampere University Admissions Office by post, if you have completed your previous degrees outside Finland.

When you are applying for a doctoral programme which has a continuous application period, the decision whether you are accepted as a doctoral student will not be made until you have submitted your educational documents officially certified.

1. Officially certified or legalised copy of the Master's degree certificate in the original language
2. Officially certified or legalised copy of the official transcript of records of the Master's degree in the original language
3. Officially certified or legalised copy of the Bachelor's degree certificate in the original language (in some programmes, please check the admissions requirements)
4. Officially certified or legalised copy of the official transcript of records of the Bachelor's degree in the original language (in some programmes, please check the admissions requirements)
5. Official translation of the Bachelor's and Master’s degree certificate and of the transcript of records unless issued in English, Finnish or Swedish
6. Research plan
7. Copy of your passport's ID page or EU/EEA/Switzerland identity card, and possible residence permit to Finland, if the applicant is not a Finnish citizen

Depending on the doctoral programme, you may also be asked to upload some of the following documents. Please see your doctoral programme's admissions requirements to confirm what are the required documents.

• Preliminary study plan
• Proof of English language proficiency 
• Motivation letter
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) / Résumé 
• Supporting statement by the responsible supervisor
• Report on possible complementary studies
• Check if there are any other programme-specific enclosures and submit them too.

Please read the following instructions before uploading the documents:

• Scan the documents. Do not take photos as the quality may not be sufficient for processing the documents.
• Scan all document pages containing any text. Remember to scan both sides of the documents if they contain anything (text, stamps, etc.) at all. Check the scan to see that everything on the original document is legible on the scan.
• The files must be in PDF format.
• All documents that are in the same category (for example the degree certificate or transcript of records) should be scanned into ONE (1) file. Do not make a separate file for each page.
• Name the documents, for example: lastname(s) first name master's degree certificate.pdf

The general language requirements for doctoral programmes can be found on our language requirements web page. The doctoral programmes may have programme-specific exceptions, so please check your doctoral programme's admissions page for their requirements on English language proficiency.

You must upload a copy of your language test results to your application, but, in addition, Tampere University will verify all language test results online.

A person accepted at a Finnish university or a polytechnic may accept only one study place in a degree programme leading to a higher education degree during one academic term, which means that if you accept a study place for a doctoral programme at Tampere University, you cannot accept another study place during that same academic term.

An officially certified or legalised copy of one of the following documents is required if you have completed your previous degrees outside Finland:

Degree certificate

A degree certificate is a document issued by an institution to a student who has successfully completed all studies included in the degree. The student has graduated. The degree certificate should include the name of the institution awarding the degree, the date of issue, and the name of the person to whom the degree certificate has been issued and which title/degree the person has been awarded.

Temporary (provisional) degree certificate

A temporary (provisional) degree certificate is a document issued by an institution to a student who has been awarded or conferred an academic degree. The temporary degree certificate is issued as a replacement for the actual degree certificate e.g. in case the actual degree certificate cannot be given to the student immediately after the studies have been completed due to technical or administrative reasons.

The temporary degree certificate must include:

• the name of the institution awarding the degree
• the date of award/conferral of the degree
• the name of the person to whom the temporary degree certificate has been issued
• the academic title/degree that has been awarded.

It is important to note that a document stating only that the student has completed all the course units is not sufficient as a temporary degree certificate.

If you have not yet graduated: If you will not graduate by the application deadline, please refer to the Instructions for applicants in the final year of their Master’s degree at the bottom of this webpage.

Please note that depending on the language of the document, an official translation may be required - see below.

An officially certified or legalised copy of the transcript of records is required if you have completed your previous degrees outside Finland:

A transcript of records is a document issued by the institution that has issued the degree certificate/temporary degree certificate. Only official transcripts of records are accepted.

The official transcript of records must include the following information:

• full titles of the study units that the student has completed for the degree
• completion times of study units (or at the very least the overall study time at the institution)
• grades obtained
• credits awarded
• information on the grading scale used at the institution
• If you have not yet graduated: The transcript of records must include the name of the degree that will be awarded to you when you graduate (e.g. Bachelor of Science, Master of Science).

The transcript must cover the full length of studies. If the degree includes course units that the student has completed in another institution and the transferred credits are not indicated in detail in the transcript of records, a separate transcript of records regarding the transferred credits must be delivered.

If your transcript does not include all the required information, please submit a separate officially certified document issued by the institution indicating the missing information.

Please note that depending on the language of the document, an official translation may be required - see below.

If your educational documents are issued in a language other than English, Finnish or Swedish, official translations of them to one of these languages are required. Please note that officially certified copies of the original documents also have to be submitted.

An official translation must be one of the following:

• issued by the awarding institution
• an officially certified copy of a translation issued by the awarding institution
• translated by an official translator
• an officially certified copy of a translation made by an official translator.

Each page of an official translation must bear the translator’s stamp and/or signature. Official translations must be exact translations of the original documents. An applicant's own translations are not accepted.

If your institution issues electronically verified educational documents, please see the instructions below and make sure that the copies submitted to Tampere University meet the following criteria. Only documents which fulfil the criteria and can be verified electronically by Tampere University are accepted. 

Please note that if your university only offers either electronically verified degree certificate or transcript of records, the other document needs to be submitted as officially certified via some other method. Additionally please note that if the document is not in English, an official translation is required. 

We accept electronic educational documents that can be verified using an electronic verification service offered by the degree awarding institution or third party service if: 

• the online service is located on the degree awarding institution's website OR, in case of third party services, the institution provides a link to the service on their website
• the entire document can be verified using the service, i.e. the verification service must show the exact same content as the document you submitted.
  • If the service verifies only parts of the document, we do not accept the document as officially certified. Instead, you must submit an officially certified copy of the document by post.

Please note the following restrictions:

• Regular PDF scans of educational documents are not accepted if the document cannot be verified using an electronic verification service on the institutions website or are not sent directly by the issuing institution (Instructions for documents delivered by the awarding institution by email).
• Institutional verification services that require Tampere University to download specific software, create a user account, or pay for the verification are not accepted.
• We must be able to verify that the documents have been digitally signed with a valid digital signature (e.g. so called Adobe blue ribbon) with the awarding institution as the certified signing body.

If you apply with electronically verified documents, you must have the electronic documents sent to Admissions Office by email to admissions.tau [at] tuni.fi.

Only documents which can be verified online by Tampere University are accepted. Please see the list of accepted services, which are known to send educational documents according to our requirements. If your university uses a service other than listed below, please note that those may not be accepted. In this case you must contact the Admissions Office after submitting the documents and your application. 

List of accepted services:

• Digitary (http://www.digitary.net/)
• My eQuals (https://www.myequals.edu.au/)
• Gradintelligence (https://gradintel.com)
• Parchment Exchange (https://www.parchment.com/)
• National Student Clearinghouse (http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/)
• Credentials Solutions / TranscriptsNetwork / Credentials Inc. (http://www.credentialssolutions.net/)
• Vitnemålsportalen (https://www.vitnemalsportalen.no/hvordan/)

For admissions starting after 1 January 2023 we accept documents delivered the by the awarding institution by email.

If your institution does not issue electronically verified educational documents, Tampere University will accept officially certified or legalised copies delivered directly from the awarding institution by email. For more details, please see the instructions in this section. Only documents submitted accordingly are accepted by Tampere University.

Please note that if your university sends only part of the required documents by email, the other documents need to be submitted by post as officially certified paper documents. Additionally, please note that if the documents are not in English, Finnish or Swedish, official translations are required. 

Please submit your application in studyinfo.fi service first and then ask your degree awarding institution to send the copies of your educational documents according to the requirements below.

The documents sent by email must meet the following requirements:

• The email must be sent directly from an official institutional email account within the document issuing institution.
• The email address from which the documents are sent must be verifiable on the institution’s public website.
• The documents are sent from an official email of the degree awarding institution. The official email address must belong to the authority that has the right to issue copies of educational documents. We need to be able to verify the sender from the official websites of the institution in question. Please note that if the website is not in English, Finnish or Swedish this may not be possible.
• The educational documents must be delivered as a pdf file. No zip or image file are accepted. We recommend that the institutions secure the email and attachments.

Documents sent by email that do not meet the above requirements are not accepted.

Officially certified copies of academic documents can be issued by the awarding institution. If you request officially certified copies from the awarding institution, make sure that the copies submitted to Tampere University meet the following criteria.

The copies:

• are taken directly from your original educational documents
• include every page of your educational documents
• bear the original stamp of the awarding institution on each page of the document (e.g. a generic stamp stating only “Certified true copy” will not be accepted)
• bear the original signature of the certifying officer on each page of the document.

Please note that regular copies of certified copies will not be accepted.

The officially certified copy can be sent by post to Tampere University either by the applicant or the awarding institution except where country-specific requirements state otherwise.

If you cannot obtain officially certified copies of your academic documents from the awarding institution, you may submit legalised copies of your academic documents.

Legalisation takes place by two different means depending on whether the relevant country is a signatory to the Hague Convention of 1961. Documents supplied by countries that have ratified the Hague Convention are legalised by the issuance of an Apostille Certificate (stamp or paper certificate). Documents issued by other countries are legalised in two steps: first by the foreign ministry of the issuing country, then by a competent Finnish Embassy or Finnish Consulate of that country.

Apostille

The Apostille Certificate (stamp or paper certificate) is necessary if the document has been issued by the authorities of a country that has ratified the Hague Convention of 1961. Information on the Hague Convention, a list of its member states and information on the authorities issuing Apostille Certificates in the various countries can be found at: Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents.

Legalisation

If the country issuing a document is not a signatory of the Hague Convention, a document is legalised by the foreign ministry of the issuing country, after which a competent Finnish Embassy or Finnish Consulate of that country legalises the document, certifying the competence of that foreign ministry official to issue such legalisation.

We have country-specific requirements for degrees awarded in the following countries: African countries, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Finland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Please see additional information on the country-specific requirements. 

Officially certified copies issued by a Finnish Notary Public are accepted. Additional information on the services of the notary public can be found on the web pages of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (until 1.1.2020 Maistraatti, Local Register Office).

Please note that officially certified copies issued by notaries public in other countries are not accepted without legalisation.

You are eligible to apply in the final year of your Master’s degree if the degree will be completed before you start your doctoral studies.

Programmes with application periods twice a year

If you are applying for a doctoral programme which has two admissions periods each year, this means that you must graduate with a Master’s degree either by 31 July (for studies starting in autumn), or by 31 December (for studies starting in January). In this case, you may be admitted to a doctoral programme conditionally.

After you have graduated with a Master’s degree, you must deliver officially certified copies of the degree certificate and final transcript of records of your Master’s degree by post to Tampere University by the deadline given to you. If you do not submit an officially certified copy of your degree certificate to Tampere University by the given deadline, your conditional admission will expire.

If you will receive your final degree certificate after the application deadline, you will need to provide the following information in an informal statement uploaded to your online application form:

• list of the course units that are yet to be finished and
• your expected date of graduation
• other information that may be relevant to admission.

This statement replaces the degree certificate during the application process. 

At this point, no statements/stamps from your university officials are required for this statement, but you must submit an official transcript and its official translation into English, Finnish or Swedish.

Please note that the transcript of records must include the name of the degree you will be awarded when you graduate (Master of, etc.). If your transcript of records does not include the name of the degree, you must submit officially certified educational documents where the name of the degree is stated or an official statement issued by the awarding institution.

Programmes with continuous admissions

If you are applying for a doctoral programme which has a continuous application period, this means that the decision whether you are accepted as a doctoral student or not will not be made until you have completed your degree and submitted the final educational documents officially certified.