Revision of the thesis

When the assessment committee reviews the PhD thesis, they can make one out of three recommendations:

  • The PhD thesis is recommended for public defence
  • The PhD thesis should be revised before a public defence.
  • The PhD thesis should not be considered for a public defence

Revising the PhD thesis is relatively common. It very rarely happens that the PhD thesis is not considered for a public defence (rejected). 

Submission of your revised thesis

Your revised thesis must be accompanied by a cover letter describing in detail (point by point) which revisions has been made. The cover letter will be sent to the assessment committee. If you choose not to follow any or some of the assessment committee's recommendations, you should explain the rationale behind your decision.

Additionally, you can include a separate version of the PhD thesis with changes tracked (in addition to the final revised thesis). If you submit a file with tracked changes, you must make it clear in the file name that this is a supporting document and not the final thesis. This supporting document will be sent to the assessment committee to be used on a voluntary basis.

You can choose to include either the original submission date or the resubmission date on the front page of your thesis.

Timeline for revision of thesis

  • 1

    The PhD School forwards the recommendation to the PhD student and the principal supervisor and offers them the opportunity to comment on the negative recommendation or to state that they have no comments

  • 2

    Depending on the contents of the principal supervisor and PhD student’s comments, the chair of the assessment committee may be given the opportunity to respond to the comments

  • 3

    When the PhD School has received a reply from the PhD student, principal supervisor, and if relevant the chair of the assessment committee, the Head of the PhD School decides whether the PhD student can revise the thesis and sets a deadline for resubmission

  • 4

    The PhD School sends the decision about the revision to the PhD student, the principal supervisor and the assessment committee

  • 5

    The PhD student will have at least 3 months to revise the thesis and resubmit the revised thesis to the PhD School via PhD Planner

  • 6

    The PhD School sends the revised thesis to the Royal Library for duplicate text screening

  • 7

    If there are no problematic findings of duplicate text, the PhD School sends the revised thesis to the assessment committee

  • 8

    The assessment committee has 2 months to assess the revised thesis

  • 9

    The assessment committee submits their recommendation to the PhD School, and the PhD School forwards the recommendation to the PhD student and the principal supervisor

  • 10

    If the recommendation is favourable, the defence can be held