Colloquium 2

At the colloquium, a second-year doctoral candidate demonstrates that the dissertation project has moved beyond a broadly formulated research proposal and has been developed into a methodologically defensible and operationalised research study. At the same time, the candidate demonstrates that, alongside a carefully developed research design, they already have initial preliminary findings derived from a pilot study, pre-test, partial data collection, or other relevant empirical steps related to the dissertation project.

At this stage of study, the purpose of the colloquium is to verify whether the candidate:

  • has defined the research problem, research aim and research objectives clearly and precisely, and where relevant the research questions or hypotheses,
  • situates the project within an appropriate theoretical framework,
  • has developed an internally coherent and feasible research design,
  • can justify the choice of methods, sample, data sources and analytical procedures,
  • has already begun the empirical phase of the research and is able to present initial preliminary findings,
  • can use those preliminary findings to refine the subsequent course of the project,
  • is developing the dissertation project through publications, conference papers and other scholarly activities.

The second-year colloquium therefore serves not only as a defence of the proposed research design, but also as a means of verifying that the project has entered the implementation stage and is generating its first empirical insights.

At this stage, preliminary findings are a compulsory part of the presentation. These do not need to be final results or a fully completed analysis, but they must constitute a concrete empirical output showing that the research is already under way and that the candidate is able to work with the data or findings in a scholarly manner.

Written submission for the colloquium

No later than 7 calendar days before the colloquium, the candidate shall submit a brief written document of approximately 3 to 5 pages, excluding appendices and the reference list.

The document should include in particular:

  1. the working title of the dissertation,
  2. a brief statement of the topic, the research problem, and the relevance of the project,
  3. the current formulation of the Research Aim and Research Objectives, and where relevant the research questions or hypotheses,
  4. a brief presentation of the theoretical framework,
  5. a detailed description of the research design,
  6. a description of the sample, data sources and data collection procedures,
  7. an account of the analytical procedure,
  8. a justification of the methodological choices,
  9. information on the research carried out to date, especially any pilot work, pre-testing, the start of data collection, or initial analytical steps,
  10. a summary of the first preliminary findings of the dissertation research,
  11. a brief comment on how these preliminary findings affect the further development of the project,
  12. brief information on the scholarly outputs to date related to the dissertation project,
  13. a plan of the next steps.

The document should clearly show the relationship between the following levels:

  • how the research problem and the aim of the study are grounded in theory,
  • how the proposed research design follows from that grounding,
  • how that design has been implemented so far,
  • what initial empirical insights have emerged from the research,
  • how those insights inform the next stage of the project.