Recruitment

Schedule

in accordance with Order no. 34 of the NCU Rector of March 18, 2024 on the limit of basic scholarship openings and the schedule for the recruitment procedure at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in the academic year 2024/2025 to the Doctoral School of Social Sciences:

Download documents

1. 1. Declaration: agreeing to recruitment terms and conditions, optional decision on delivering the decision via email
   2. CONSENT TO PERSONAL DATA PROCESSING; Consent to the method of announcing the results 
   3. List of required documents 
   4. List of annexes confirming additional (optional) qualifications 

Form and deadline for submitting recruitment documents

Upon the decision of the Director of the Doctoral School of Social Sciences, pursuant to item 2 para. 3 of the Qualification Procedure Framework, the recruitment documents should be submitted only in a digital form to the address of the Doctoral School: ars.rekrutacja@umk.pl (an alias of the address ars@umk.pl, dedicated to recruitment purposes). In the body and title of the email, please indicate that the documents you are sending are to be the basis for the recruitment process. Only complete applications will be considered.

Early and/or overdue applications will not be considered.

Limit of places

In the recruitment planned for 2023, the limit of basic scholarship places in the Doctoral School of Social Sciences has been set on the basis of the Order No. 34 of the Rector at 18 places. This limit is not pre-divided among the disciplines within which the training takes place in the Doctoral School – all candidates will be ranked in one ranking list.

The most important information and guidelines

for the English-speaking candidates contained in the documents governing recruitment to the NCU Doctoral School of Social Sciences (i.e. Resolution No. 27 of the Senate of NCU of May 25, 2021 on the conditions and mode of recruitment to the Doctoral School of Social Sciences of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń with further changes in Resolution No. 8 of the Senate of January 25, 2022, and Appendix No. 1 to the Resolution No. 8 of the Senate of January 25, 2022 on Qualification Procedure Framework, available in Polish here):

The supervision over the recruitment process shall be exercised by the Vice-Rector of Science.

A person may apply for admission to the Doctoral School if they completed a second cycle degree programme or a long-cycle degree programme and hold the title of magister or equivalent, or are a beneficiary of the “Diamentowy Grant” programme, or obtained the title of licencjat and made a statement that they shall obtain the title of magister or equivalent before being enrolled on the list of doctoral students, and demonstrates aptitude for scholarly and research work, ability, time and organizational capacity, and a level of knowledge that suggests he or she is capable of preparing and defending a doctoral dissertation within four years.

The recruitment procedure consists of the following stages:

1) registration for studies in electronic form on the website irk.umk.pl, which is the Online Registration of Candidates System (hereinafter referred to as the IRK SYSTEM or ORC);

2) submission of required documents;

3) submission of a declaration of choice of School;

4) qualification procedure

5) determination of a ranking list

6) announcement of a ranking list of persons enrolled as doctoral students

A necessary condition for commencement of the qualification procedure is the submission by candidates of all the required documents, within the deadline specified by the Rector’s order, and in the form required by the School in a given recruitment (paper, electronic or both).

Candidates submit the following documents:

1) an application form printed from the IRK system and signed;

2) academic curriculum vitae;

3) a copy of the master’s diploma and the diploma of completion of the second degree, or a document entitling to admission to the School without completion of the second degree, or a photocopy of such a document, certified to be a true copy of the original;

4) a copy of the master’s thesis or equivalent work;

5) a written opinion on the predisposition to scientific work prepared by the thesis supervisor. In special cases, it is possible to submit an opinion prepared by another academic teacher;

6) a research project constituting the basis for the doctoral dissertation;

7) documents confirming additional qualifications, in particular language qualifications, as well as academic and artistic achievements, including copies of any publications;

8) a current photograph in an electronic form, which the candidate enters into the IRK system, conforming to the requirements used in issuing IDs;

9) declarations necessary in the process of recruitment, being appendixes no 2 and 3 to the Resolution of the Senate (available to be downloaded below)

10) candidates using a diploma issued outside Poland are required to submit an apostille or legalization of the diploma, preferably in Polish.”

Candidates accepted to the School shall submit original documentation required by the School immediately after the announcement of the results of the recruitment process, including a statement for the purposes of insurance of a doctoral student, the originals of which must be submitted to the School’s secretariat within 5 days of the announcement of the results.

The qualification procedure shall be conducted by means of a competition. A person who scores less than 50 points in both stages and/or less than 5 points in any of the two stages of qualification procedure decribed below may not be admitted to the School. Admission to the School takes place in the order of the results obtained by successful candidates, within the fixed limit of places. Decision on not accepting a candidate not qualified is made by the Director. A motion for reconsideration of the case may be submitted to the School Director within 14 days from delivery of the decision to the unsuccessful candidate.

The results of the qualification proceedings are public and are made available by the School for inspection in the form of a general report of the qualification proceedings. The minutes of the interview and the results of the analysis of the documentation concerning a given candidate are made available to that candidate for inspection upon a written request to the School Director.

Qualification Procedure Framework

The qualification procedure is conducted by the Qualification Committee.

In the first stage of the qualification procedure, the Qualification Committee analyzes the documents submitted by the candidates.

Documents must be submitted in the form accepted and promulgated by the Doctoral School of Social Sciences for the current recruitment (in the current recruitment in digital form to ars.rekrutacja@umk.pl). For documents submitted by email, the date of entry is the date of the email from the candidate stating the intention to participate in the recruitment. All document files (scans/PDF files) should include the candidate’s last name and first name in the file name.

The documentation should contain a list of required documents, in which the candidate shall provide his/her data and indicate the number of additional attachments. The candidate shall also submit a list of attachments proving qualifications and achievements submitted by him/her in the recruitment. Both formulars can be downloaded from the ARS website.

The documentation should include consent, declaration, information on storage and processing of personal data, along with the declaration that the candidate is familiar with the form of the announcement of the results of the proceedings (appendix no. 3 to the Resolution, to be downloaded from the School’s website), and the declaration of acceptance of the rules of recruitment (appendix no. 2 to the Resolution, , to be downloaded from the School’s website). A candidate may agree to receive the decision on admission or rejection by e-mail on the basis of voluntary declaration of will (appendix no. 2 to the Resolution).

It is the candidate’s responsibility to choose which documents confirming competences and achievements to submit in the recruitment procedure and to ensure that the documentation submitted is complete. The candidate will be informed about deficiencies in the documentation required for the proceedings via the ORC system, in the “Documents and next steps” tab (My account -> Recruitment applications -> Documents and next steps -> List of documents to be submitted). Properly submitted documents will have the status “approved”. Documents that are not required will have the “not required” status. No message or other comment on the status means that a given is yet to be submitted. The candidate has time to complete the documents until the submission deadline.

The second stage of the qualification procedure is an interview. The interview concerns in particular the previous activities of the candidate on the basis of the submitted CV and the research project presented in the documentation, which is the basis of the PhD dissertation.

Documents to be evaluated in the qualification procedure include:

1) a scientific curriculum vitae,

2) written opinion (or opinions) on the predispositions to scientific work prepared by the thesis supervisor or/and another academic teacher, characterizing the candidate’s previous research field

and the problems addressed by the candidate in his/her doctoral dissertation, and

3) a project of research work constituting the basis of the doctoral dissertation, with particular emphasis on the selected scientific problem.

The first two of these documents are taken into account in the first stage of the qualification procedure (this part will also take into account the grade on the master’s or second-degree diploma).

The project is evaluated in the second stage of the qualification procedure: an interview, during which the candidate can present its details and the Commission can ask questions.

The scientific curriculum vitae, in addition to the standard information about the candidate’s education, should include lists of accomplishments in previous student, organizational, and scholarly work, i.e. (1) a list of publications; 2) a list of conference presentations; and 3) a list of scholarly, organizational, and community activities and scientific awards/competitions received, which do not fall within the scope of the previous two lists. In all these lists one should indicate, as appropriate, no more than the three publications that the candidate considers most important, no more than the three presentations of the paper/poster at scientific conferences/conventions that the candidate considers most important, and no more than the three organizational, social, scientific activities/other scientific competencies/awards that the candidate considers most important. The Commission’s preferred accomplishments should be those in the social sciences. Points are awarded only for those of the achievements which have been obtained/accomplished within the last 8 years counting from the time of the qualification procedure in which the candidate is currently participating.

The documentation must include copies of three publications mentioned as the most important in the curriculum vitae (for texts that have not yet been published, documents proving that the publication has been accepted for publication are also needed), documents proving that the candidate has presented papers/posters at conferences, and appropriate documentation (if possible) of other activities and/or competencies demonstrated in the curriculum vitae. The CV may also include additional information, e.g. on interests, skills, or various activities of the candidate that do not fit in with those listed above.

The written opinion on the predisposition to scientific work prepared by the thesis supervisor and/or by another academic teacher should include the characteristics of the candidate’s research results obtained in the thesis and, more importantly, an evaluation of the submitted project and an assessment of the candidate’s predisposition to scientific work scientific and research work.

The project of the research work forming the basis of the doctoral dissertation, with particular emphasis on the selected scientific problem, should not exceed twenty thousand characters with spaces (20,000 c.w.s.). The project should include in an orderly internally organized form, the characteristics of the problem/topic of the future dissertation, its planned form, state of the research/description of the importance of the problem for the development of the discipline, methodology, research hypotheses and bibliography.

Members of the Qualification Committee, after analyzing the documentation and interviewing the Candidates, award from 0 to 100 points to each Candidate: up to 50 points in the first stage – analysis of the documentation, and up to 50 points in the second stage – interview. In the case of the documentation analysis, the members of the Qualifying Committee will award up to 30 points for publications presented for the qualification procedure and up to 20 points for other achievements of the Candidate presented in the documentation (i.e. conferences and other activities/qualifications). The averaged scores of the Committee members from each stage are then totaled. The sum of points decides about the place on the ranking list. A person who obtained less than 50 points in the entire qualification procedure or a person who obtained less than 5 points in any of the two stages of the qualification procedure (analysis of documents or interview) cannot be entered on the list of doctoral students.

The results of the qualification procedure are announced by publishing the list of those admitted on the basis of the ranking list. The results of the procedure of individual candidates are made available to them via ORC on the day of their announcement. Candidates qualified for the admission, who within 5 days declare their choice of the Doctoral School of Social Sciences ARS UMK as the doctoral school, in which they are determined to undertake studies, and submit a set of original documents required by the School, are entered in the list of admitted candidates (list of doctoral students). Qualified candidates, who do not declare their will to choose the Doctoral School of Social Sciences as their doctoral school and/or do not submit the documents, are not entered on the list of admitted candidates; then, if there are other candidates on the ranking list, who have obtained more than 50 points in the whole qualification procedure and more than 5 points in each stage, they are qualified as reserve candidates and may submit the documents mentioned above in order to be entered on the list of admitted candidates. A document confirming admission to the doctoral school is issued to the admitted candidates at the time of their visit with the documents to the School’s secretariat.

Non-admitted candidates (including those who resigned from the qualification procedure and those who gave up their ranking place entitling them to admission to the School) receive decisions of non-admission to the Doctoral School of Social Sciences. Requests for reconsideration may be submitted after the delivery of the non-admission decision in the School’s secretary’s office or by mail, within 14 days after the date of the delivery of the decision. A motion for reconsideration of a case may be submitted by non-admitted candidates who took part in both stages of the qualification procedure, i.e. who did not resign from the procedure on their own.