1. Admission
In addition to the requirements for admission to a doctoral program defined in the doctoral regulations of the university departments, further more specific criteria must be met for admission to a doctoral program of DRS. These are defined by the regulations of the doctoral programs. Admission to a program is based on a competitive selection process that usually consists of three to four stages: examination of formal requirements, internal or external review, selection interviews, comparative decision by the selection committee.

2. Supervision
For supervision of doctoral researchers, supervision teams of at least two supervisors are formed; these may come from different disciplines and institutions, also from regional and international partners. Postdoctoral researchers may also be involved in the supervision.

3. Supervision agreement
In a supervision agreement, the topic and duration of the doctorate, the members of the supervision team as well as the rights and obligations of both sides are regulated.
A sample of the supervision agreement may be found here.

4. Progress monitoring
At least once per semester, the doctoral candidate and the supervisory team meet for discussions in which the progress of the doctorate is evaluated and important steps for the coming phase are jointly determined. The discussions should be documented, and the documentation forms the basis for the follow-up meeting. A template for the documentation of the meetings may be found here. An MS Word version is available upon request.