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All doctoral students in Aalto Doctoral Programme in Chemical Engineering must have an active advisory group.

Please find below instructions by the Doctoral Programme Committee (1/2016) of Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering (Aalto CHEM) for evaluating the study progress of the doctoral students, and guidelines for the advisory group. 

Three or 3.5 years of doctoral research and studies constitute the groundwork for preparing a dissertation at Aalto University. In addition to this, Aalto CHEM has specific requirements and guidelines for a doctoral dissertation. The supervising professor should clearly communicate and agree these guidelines with the doctoral student and thesis advisor(s).

Evaluation timelines 

Each doctoral student of CHEM must have an advisory group.
Advisory group meetings must be organised at least four (4) times during doctoral studies.

1. 1st meeting with the advisory group within the first 9-12 months of doctoral studies. Discussion items for the 1st meeting: plans for the 1st publication, update of study plan, research plan, and discussion of the transferable skills, such as scientific writing and presentation skills.
2. 2nd meeting at 16-21* months of doc. studies. At 2nd meeting cover these items: evaluation of the progress, status of the 1st publication, plans for the 2nd publication and update of a research plan. Teaching or advisor tasks during the doctoral studies as Aalto. Discussion of transferable skills, research exchange prospects, conference presentation plan, networking within researchers etc.
3. 3rd meeting at 25-30 months of doctoral studies. At 3rd meeting: the revision of the finalizing plan of res. work and publications, plans for the pre-examination, career plan, status of the conference presentations, building of professional network, how to apply for more funding for the finalizing of the thesis and related publications.
4. 4th meeting at 34-40 months of doctoral studies with the advisory group. At 4th meeting: the detailed plans for pre-examination and defence, career plan, etc.

Advisory groups meetings will be continued until the thesis manuscript has been submitted for the pre-examination.

*Starting from 1/2026: Students with Aalto CHEM employment (2+2 years) must have their 2nd advisory group meeting at least two months before their second year as doctoral student ends.

Without advisory group's meeting minutes, the applications or funding decisions for the school's funding cannot be evaluated.

Advisory group members and their roles

• Supervising professor
• 1-3 thesis advisors, max. one (1) from each participating organization of student's thesis project.
• 1-2 external / academic researcher members from Aalto or outside of Aalto University, company or industry, typically these external members . This "external" member should have no direct link to the doctoral student's research work, thus having clearly more like mentor role than thesis advisors.
• Administrative member (CHEM Doctoral programme planning officer)

All doctoral programme committee members have right to attend these advisory group meetings.

Doctoral student will organise and schedule these meetings (typically 60 min each). The members will be provided with meeting material, including short report of progress of work and future reseach and study plans together with timelines for publications and thesis writing.  The meeting materials are confidential and should not be given to third parties without professor's and student's permission. During the meeting, student will collect the notes of suggestions and future plans as they are agreed at meeting. Advisory group can accept, accept after revision or reject the suggested timelines and plans for publications and finalizing the thesis work.
Based on the discussion at advisory group meeting, doctoral student revises the PP presentation (which includes all DSPS content) documentation after each meeting. After each meeting, student must submit the meeting materials (typically a PP presentation) including the group members comments from the meeting to all advisory group members.

Additionally, if the agreed changes require official confirmation from Doc. Programme Committee, student will submit the form /sites/default/files/2023-08/Aalto_changes_doctoral_studies_form_240823.pdf

Responsibilities of doctoral student and supervising professor

• The student will follow the research plan, or inform without delay if essential changes are needed with reseach work
• The student may also propose advisory group members
• The student must organize, send meeting meeting invitations and attend all the advisory group meetings

The student and supervising professor must ensure that the minutes of meetings from the advisory group meetings are submitted to Doctoral Programme Committee for saving at MyStudies/SuccessHub platform. The minutes include comments for possible proposed changes to the studies and/or research, detailed timeline and comments related to it, update of progress between meetings, status of each publications and thesis manuscript. The present version of MyStudies/Success Hub platfform is only accessible for users with Aalto affiliation.