Obtaining a PhD degree without enrolment 

You must have documented affiliation with UCPH. Examples of affiliation: You have studied or had a research stay at UCPH, you have cooperated and/or published papers with scientists from UCPH, or you have taken courses at UCPH. 

You must have a university representative when submitting your application. The university representative must be employed at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences as either an associate professor, senior researcher, professor, clinical associate professor or clinical professor. The university representative assists during the assessment period and is responsible for planning the oral defence.

The change of research environment must have been completed within the last 5 years and must be documented in your CV.  The duration of the stay in another research environment must have been at least four weeks at another university, company or institution in Denmark or abroad.

Number of ECTS credits

You must have completed PhD courses amounting to 25.5-35 ECTS credits. The courses must have been at PhD level and  relevant to your thesis subject. Learn how to calculate ECTS. 

The exact number of ECTS credits you must have completed before submitting your application depends on your participation in the Responsible Conduct of Research courses offered by the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences:

• If you have passed both Responsible Conduct of Research 1 and Responsible Conduct of Research 2, you must have obtained a minimum of 28 ECTS credits.
• If you have passed Responsible Conduct of Research 1, you must have obtained a minimum of 27 ECTS credits.
• If you have not passed neither Responsible Conduct of Research 1 nor Responsible Conduct of Research 2, you must have obtained a minimum of 25.5 ECTS credits. 

Age of ECTS credits

A maximum of 7.5 ECTS credits may be completed between 5 and 10 years before submitting an application for obtaining a PhD without enrolment. All other ECTS credits must be no more than 5 years old when submitting the application. 

If you have been enrolled as a regular PhD student within one year of your application date, you are exempt from this age restriction on courses.                                                       

How to obtain ECTS credits before applying for a PhD without enrolment

A wide variety of courses can be approved and included in your application. These include courses completed at UCPH, but also courses and activities completed elsewhere. Find examples on our website for enrolled PhD students and learn how to calculate ECTS.

You can also search for relevant courses offered by the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences in the Course Catalogue.

The courses must be at PhD level and relevant to your thesis subject.

Required documentation for PhD courses

When filling in the application, you must provide the following documents:
course programme, course description and course certificate for each course.

You must have teaching experience or have carried out knowledge dissemination, e.g. presentation of research results.

You must finish your PhD thesis and submit it within one year, starting from the date your application is approved.

Neither your PhD thesis nor parts of it may have been used as a basis for obtaining other academic degrees.