Doctoral Programme in Dental Medicine (PhD)

The Crown of Science: Doctoral Programme in Dental Medicine (PhD)

Doctoral programmes (PhD studies) are a central and indispensable part of university science and research. Students in a doctoral programme, young researchers in their field of specialisation, develop new knowledge and make a significant contributions to scientific developments in their field. Accordingly, the heart of a doctoral programme is independent research, which is presented and defended at the end of their studies in the form of a dissertation.

Qualification objectives

DPU seeks to continuously tackle complex scientific questions in its Doctoral Programme in Dentistry (PhD). Such scientific questions are developed in close cooperation with Austrian and foreign university and institutional research facilities.

The Doctoral Programme in Dentistry (PhD) at DPU serves to further develop and enable independent scientific work and thus the acquisition of expertise by contributing to the development of dental, oral and maxillofacial medicine through independent research.

In addition to the highest professional competence, students of this programme also acquire general scientific and communicative skills that are required to successfully pursue a scientific profession in the academic, industrial or public sector.

Graduates of the Doctoral Programme in Dentistry (PhD) have excellent career prospects in dental practices and the dental industry, e.g. in the areas of “Scientific Affairs” or “Clinical Research Management”. In particular, graduates of the Doctoral Programme in Dentistry (PhD) are extremely well prepared for a university career (habilitation).

Structure and curriculum

The Doctoral Programme in Dentistry (PhD) is a regular three-year doctoral programme with a total of 180 ECTS credits. It consists of modularly structured stages of study with a period of study of six semesters. The programme is divided into education (lectures) and productive research (dissertation). The students are guided in their work here.

In the module “An Introduction to PhD Studies”, for example, students learn the necessary basics for drafting and budgeting project applications. In the module “Medical Science in a Social Context”, the ethical aspects of research involving experiments on animals, clinical research and research in dental and medical practice are looked at among other things. After students have learned the basics of scientific work and statistics/biostatistics, they learn and practice how to present scientific data in the “University Didactics” module. Another modules focuses on scientific writing in preparation for the dissertation.

A detailed study programme is provided on application.