Doctorate Degree / Ph.D.

Due to capacity constraints, Prof. Körber only accepts external doctoral candidates in exceptional cases. The minimum requirement is a degree with honours (1st or 2nd German examination according to § 5 DRiG) and a particularly convincing project outline for the doctoral project (max. 5 pages). If only the 1st examination (state examination) with honours has been passed, both (the state part and the univrsity part) must have been completed with honours and the university specialisation must be related to the research fields of the chair. 

A bachelor's or master's/LL.M. degree is not sufficient. The only exception is made for LL.M.-students who have received their degree in Cologne under Prof. Körber's supervision and have received the grade “gut” or “sehr gut” for their thesis.

The proposed doctoral thesis topic must be related to Prof. Körber's research fields. This means that you must develop a dissertation topic before applying. This must include at least one clearly formulated research question, a rough outline and an overview of the current state of publications in the field of research in order to identify which new questions are to be explored in the dissertation.

Enquiries that do not meet these requirements are pointless and will not be answered.