The Gutenberg Graduate School of the Humanities and Social Sciences prides itself on the high quality of its doctoral supervision. Submission of a supervision agreement is therefore a requirement for admission as a full member to the GSHS. This is an important quality criterion for doctoral studies and an indicator of the GSHS’s intent to ensure that the highest standards of good practice are already in place ahead of the new directives on quality standards in doctoral studies to be introduced as part of the recent amendment to the Rhineland Palatinate Higher Education Act.
The purpose of the supervision agreement is to encourage both student and supervisor to consider the supervisory relationship, assess its efficacy and document progress. Ideally, this will also enhance the commitment, continuity and transparency of the supervision process for both parties.
The concluded agreement is to be jointly reviewed at regular intervals and revised where necessary.
In justified cases, the supervision agreement can be submitted within a maximum period of six months after admission.
Some faculties have already developed their own, subject-specific models for the supervision agreements:
Faculty 07 (History and Cultural Studies) (in German)
Faculty 09 (Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Geography and Geosciences) (in German)
Faculty 10 (Biology) (in German)
Mainz Research School of Translational Biomedicine
In all other cases, we recommend using the Gutenberg Council for Young Researchers (GYR) model supervision agreement. This is explicitly to be considered as a practical tool for supervisors and doctoral students, who can then discuss how best to adapt it to suit the specific requirements of the doctoral project in question.
Further information can be found in the GNK_Leitlinien-Betreuungsvereinbarung-JGU.pdf (uni-mainz.de) (in German) guidelines on supervision agreements, as approved by the JGU Senate on April 28, 2017.