Information on registering for your thesis

Please take the following into account when registering for your Bachelor's or Master's thesis

  • To register for your thesis, you must fill in an application for admission. Application forms are provided via TUNE. Please print out the relevant form, fill in the details and sign the form. Then send the form to the Examination Office (you do not have to hand it in in person).
    You can find a description how to find the application forms in the TUNE manual.
  • For Bachelor's theses only:
    In line with the subject-specific provisions for the course and examination regulations, the thesis should be written within a period of nine weeks. If you are attending classes at the same time as writing your thesis, you must agree the period for writing the thesis with your first examiner when registering for the thesis. In this case, the period for writing the thesis must not exceed six months. Please indicate on your form whether you are attending classes while writing your thesis. Only classes that form part of your Bachelor's course may be counted.
  • The Examination Office will review the application, grant its approval and send the form on to your first examiner. Please contact your first examiner to discuss and decide the subject of and period for writing your thesis.
  • Your first examiner will fill in the third part of the form and then return it to the Examination Office.
  • You can look up the deadline in in TUNE; either in your personal account or in the overview of your registered exams or the current total overview (you can generate both yourself in TUNE). 
  • If you want to complete your thesis at an establishment outside the university, you must submit a corresponding application. The relevant form for this can be found on your account on the TUHH portal. Please open and print the form, fill in the details, sign it, obtain a statement from the first examiner and send your application to the Examination Office. The decision of the Chair of the Examination Board must be available to the examination office by the time you submit your application for admission to the thesis.
 
 

 

General information on submitting theses

Please consider the following information when submitting your thesis:

  • At the latest by the end of the deadline you have to submit two printed and bounded copies of your thesis (each for both your first and second examiner) to the Examination Office. A seperate copy of the cover page must be attached.
    The theses must be submitted within the deadline.
  • You can look up the deadline in in TUNE; either in your personal account or in the overview of your registered exams or the current total overview (you can generate both yourself in TUNE). 
  • You can look up the current title of your thesis by generating the current total overview in TUNE
  • Theses must be firmly bound (e. g. with glue or adhesive binding). Loose bindings (e. g. ring binder bindings) will not be recognized!
  • A signed affidavit must be included in both copies of the thesis (acc. to § 21 section 6 ASPO). Your examiners will surely help you with the wording of such a declaration.
  • If your submission deadline ends on a weekend or public holiday, the theses must be submitted no later than the next working day. 
    E. g.:
  1. The submission deadline is a Saturday or a Sunday ➔ The theses must be submitted by the following Monday at the latest!
  2. The submission deadline is a public holiday ➔ The theses must be submitted no later than the next working day!
  • For Bachelor and Master theses, the written elaboration must also be submitted in digital form on a storage medium (acc. to § 21 section 6 ASPO). For example, the thesis can be burned on CD and glued into the thesis.

Attention: If the title of the thesis has changed and the final printed title differs from the title specified in the application for registration of your thesis, the changes to the title must be confirmed in German and English by your first examiner before submission.

Submission of theses during office hours

You can also submit your thesis in person during the office hours offered within the given processing time.

You can make an appointment here.

After being processed, the theses and the evaluation form will be returned to you. You must then forward these to your first and second examiners.

Submission of theses via the mailbox

Theses can be submitted via the mailbox in front of Building E (Entrance I) on any weekday within the processing time.

The mailbox separates the incoming mail at exactly 00:00.
From Monday to Friday the mailbox will be emptied twice a day .

After processing by the Examination Office, your theses and the evaluation form will be forwarded to your first and second examiner by in-house mail.

Make absolutely sure that you have signed the affidavit in your theses by hand before putting the copies in the mailbox.

Please only label your envelope with "Examination Office", your name and degree program.

Submission of theses by postal service

Theses can be sent to the Examination Office for submission via postal service within the given processing time.

Address:
Technische Universität Hamburg
Zentrales Prüfungsamt (S6)
Am Schwarzenberg-Campus 3 (E)
21073 Hamburg

The date of the postmark is taken as the submission date.
Any deadlines for submitting the shipment to the shipping service provider of your choice must be taken into account on your own responsibility.

After processing by the Examination Office, your theses and the evaluation form will be forwarded to your first and second examiner by in-house mail.

Make absolutely sure that you have signed the affidavit in your theses by hand before handing over the copies to the shipping service provider.

INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS AND EXAMINERS

Rights related to your thesis

 

1. Theses - copyright

The authors of works in the literary, scientific and artistic domain enjoy protection for their works in accordance with the German Act on Copyright and Related Rights (section 1 UrhG). Protected works include works of language, computer programmes and illustrations of a scientific or technical nature, such as drawings, plans, maps, sketches, tables and three-dimensional representations (section 2 UrhG). Bachelor’s and Master’s dissertations are scientific works and thus protected by the German Act on Copyright and Related Rights. It is not necessary to apply or register for copyright as you get copyright protection automatically.

In line with section 7 UrhG, the author is the creator of the work. Students are thus the authors of their own dissertations. They alone hold the rights outlined in the UrhG, such as the exclusive right to publication and exploitation of their dissertations.

Where several persons have jointly created a work, they are joint authors of the work (section 8 UrhG). The work may only be published and used with the consent of all joint authors. Joint authorship of dissertations is routinely precluded as university examination regulations require examination candidates to submit independent work (see section 59 Hamburg Higher Education Act (HmbHG)).

Supervisors do not gain copyright through the supervision of a student’s dissertation. This is also the case where the supervisor provides inspiration or ideas for the dissertation. Copyright does not protect ideas or concepts in their own right, but only the presentation of said ideas or concepts, whether in words, images or sound. The inclusion of third parties’ information and ideas in academic works is nonetheless still subject to the rules of good academic practice, meaning, among other things, that such content must be clearly referenced with sources cited.

2. Inventions and patents associated with theses

Inventions are not protected by the German Act on Copyright and Related Rights (UrhG) but by the German Patent Act (PatG). Patents shall be granted for any inventions, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are susceptible of industrial application (section 1 PatG) The proprietor of the patent is entitled to refuse others use of the invention.

If several persons have jointly created an invention, the right to the patent shall belong to them jointly (section 6 PatG). A patentable invention that is made in the course of a dissertation thus belongs to the persons on whose ideas and intellectual abilities the invention is based. The (sole) copyright of the student therefore does not exclude that a supervisor, for example, is the (joint) inventor of the technical invention that was made in the course of the dissertation.

As dissertations are not written in the context of an employment relationship with the university, the university cannot claim inventions linked to dissertations as job-related inventions. See the German Act on Employees’ Inventions.

3. Granting right of use of intellectual property

Authors and inventors can grant third parties the right to use their copyrighted works or grant them rights associated with their inventions, e.g. via a licence contract or sale of rights.

Students are not obligated to grant the university any rights. As such, making the supervision or correction of a dissertation dependent on the student granting such rights to the university is not permitted.

The TUHH has an interest in using content from selected dissertations with the author’s permission for research or teaching purposes, for example, during classes or when developing software. A template for granting rights of use has been made available for this purpose. The TUHH generally does not intend to make use of dissertation content for purposes other than research and teaching. The right to use the dissertation content for any other purposes remains with the author/s.

It is recommended that supervisors point examination candidates to this information sheet when supervision commences. The signed declaration of consent should be kept at the institute in which the dissertation was supervised.