At finnish universities the doctorate plays a very important role because it is the highest level of qualification for a university professorship. It is therefore for professors a high academic honor to conduct the final oral examination as a scientific opponent of the candidates. The main actors in the PhD defense at finnish universities are the so-called custos, as supervisor of the process, and the opponent, as scientific argument opponents of the candidates appointed by the faculty. The Doctoral candidate and the opponent pursue an intense scientific debate of up to several hours prior to an interested public audience. The custos shall ensure compliance with the rules of disputation and involved the audience. The right for the proposal of the final grade to the faculty lies at the opponent, who thus holds a very influential role in the process.
First scientific opponent from Lemgo at Tampere University of Technology
Professor Jürgen Jasperneite, director of the Institutes inIT and Fraunhofer IOSB-INA, has been appointed by the faculty of engineering sciences of the Tampere University of Technology (TUT) in Finland as an opponent in a doctoral defense. Tampere is the center of the finnish mechanical engineering. The TUT is involved in clusters similar to the leading edge technology cluster it’s OWL. The doctoral candidate Niko Siltala proposes in his Doctoral Thesis a formal description of digital production resources. This is an important prerequisite for future agile production systems and an active research field of the Lemgo scientists.
