Thesis Advisory Committee Meeting (TAC)

The Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC) will act as a review panel and also allows for any problems, scientific or otherwise, to be aired and discussed as appropriate. The TAC shall evaluate the PhD candidate’s progress and give external advice to the PhD candidate and his/her supervisor(s). Moreover, the TAC offers formalized support, and a ‘protected space’ to resolve possible conflicts between PhD candidates, supervisors, and other research/training team members.

WHO

  • the PhD candidate
  • a VDS CoBeNe representative serving as chair (Katja Hellekes, Tamara Tapaj or Julia Reiter, depending on our availabilities)
  • the supervisor(s)
  • the two mentor(s):
    i) at least one CoBeNe faculty member familiar with the topic but not involved in the PhD studies,
    ii) an expert who can be also a non-CoBeNe faculty member or from another discipline and/or university as we would like to strive networking

Organization and structure of the meeting

  • Please send an email to all participants, including your supervisor(s), mentors and vds.cobene@univie.ac.at with a link for possible appointments so everyone can fill in their availabilities (e.g. use termino or doodle). It is helpful to ask your supervisor(s) for several possible dates in advance.
  • The meeting needs to be scheduled for ONE hour. Please prepare your presentation in the duration of 15 minutes.
  • In your presentation, please:
    • Provide information on the theoretical background of your project
    • State your hypothesis and planned studies
    • Show (first) results or point out difficulties
    • Explain the next steps
    • Include a Timetable (e.g. Gantt chart)
    • Give an overview of your achievements of the last year (e.g. conferences, courses, publications)
  • After the 15 min presentation there will be a Q&A part, for scientific feedback from the committee.
  • The last 20 minutes of the meeting are dedicated to private sessions (one with the supervisor(s), the other with the PhD candidate)
  • In the end there will be a summary

When

  • The TAC meeting should be scheduled every year.
  • First TAC meeting can be used in preparation for the Public Presentation (FÖP) or planned independently.

Where

  • You can organize your TAC meeting online (e.g via Zoom) or in person. For in person meetings please book a room. In general, we do not recommend hybrid meetings.