PhD Studies in general
General
Due to the information technology boom, there is a shortage of people with a PhD degree in computer science in both universities and the business world. To meet this shortage of researchers, the universities have started different programmes, like research schools, research institutes and centres of excellence. In addition, IT businesses have invested heavily in R&D by establishing their own research centres, among other things. This makes the situation very favourable for research and PhD studies in computer science.
Objectives
The goal of a PhD degree in computer science is to gain deeper knowledge of some sub-field of computer science and the ability to attain new scientific insights in it. PhD studies are usually based on the MSc degree, on the topic of the Master's thesis. We try to steer MSc students who seem like promising PhD students towards such subjects that will make a good basis for PhD studies.
Work in research groups
If they want to continue as PhD students, undergraduates are well advised to contact the department research group conducting research in their field of interest when choosing the topic for their Master's thesis, at the latest. The group can offer support in many forms, such as scientific expertise, discussions and innovation, as well as international contacts. Belonging to a research group will make it easier to finance your studies, too, often at the stage of writing your Master's thesis. The fields of research and project groups are presented on the page http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/research/index.en.html.
PhD degrees
The goal of the PhD studies may be the Licentiate degree, and/or the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. A central part of the studies is the independent writing of a licentiate or doctoral thesis. Licentiate research should show that the student is well acquainted with the research field, and that s/he is able to perform independent work in writing scientific texts and performing scientific work. In the doctoral degree, the requirements for the thesis are on a higher level: the thesis should show academic maturity and contain internationally significant new knowledge.
PhD students are recommended to aim at the doctoral degree. Usually, a preliminary version of the doctoral thesis can then be accepted as a licentiate thesis. The doctoral thesis may also be developed from the licentiate thesis, if the topic is suitable. In most cases, students should aim at internationally publishable results as soon as they have achieved certain basic skills. Results may be published as journal and conference articles even before the thesis is finished, and it is possible to have a collection of such articles assembled into a thesis. The other possible form of a thesis is a monograph that presents the research as a whole.
More information
More general informationm about PhD studies at the University of Helsinki can be found on
- the University's post graduate applicants page
- the Faculty of Science's postgraduate page
- interviews with PhD students (in Finnish)