The following are required for the granting of a Ph.D.:

(1) Possession of an M.Sc. degree, with very limited exceptions.

(2) Duration of study: at least two and no more than four consecutive calendar years, beginning with the student's first registration in the Department after acquiring an M.Sc. degree.

(3) Fulfillment of the basic knowledge requirements.

(4) Satisfactory completion of at least 40 graduate course credits. These can include graduate course credits completed previously for an M.Sc. degree from the Department.

(5) Passing of the General Graduate Examinations (GGE). The student is required to undergo GGE within one calendar year after his/her first registration in the Department after acquiring a Master's degree. This holds as well for students already holding a Master's degree or equivalent upon their first registration in the Graduate Studies Program. If unsuccessful, the student has the right to try once more. After successfully passing GGE, the student is consider a Doctoral Candidate and begins work on his/her doctoral dissertation under the supervision and guidance of a supervising professor who is a Department faculty member. The student's progress is monitored by a three-member advisory committee.

(6) Submission of a thesis proposal. The doctoral candidate is expected to submit to the Graduate Studies Committee a thesis proposal approved by the advisory committee, within three semesters after the successful completion of the General Graduate Examinations.

(7) Successful defence of thesis. Upon completion of the doctoral candidate's thesis, a seven-member examination committee is appointed.

(8) The doctoral dissertation must be an original work of research and contain note-worthy research results and elements which confirm the doctoral candidate's personal contribution to his/her field.

(9) The doctoral candidate must develop his/her dissertation openly with respect to the Examination Committee, which will then judge the originality of the thesis and whether it constitutes a substantial contribution to the field.

The doctoral thesis may be written in either Greek or in English (upon agreement by the supervising professor), and must be accompanied by a summary in the chosen language as well as an extensive summary (roughly a self-contained article) in the other language.Finally, regarding the substantial part of the student's work and the content of the doctoral thesis, the following words of Einstein, Infeld and Wertheimer from 1938 and 1945 hold true as much today as ever...

"The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science."
A. Einstein and L. Infeld,
The Evolution of Physics, 1938.

"The function of thinking is not just solving an actual problem but discovering, envisaging, going into deeper questions. Often, in great discoveries the most important thing is that a certain question is found. Envisaging, putting the productive question is often a more important, often a greater achievement than solution of a set question."

M. Wertheimer,
Productive Thinking, 1945.