tum thesis guidelines

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Making Your Thesis a Success

For most students, their final research paper is the first major work written during their degree program. It is much more comprehensive and demanding than term or seminar papers they have written during the course of their studies and, therefore, requires more planning.

Formalities: What regulations apply to the thesis?

Here, you will find information on the regulations governing the writing and submission of your thesis.  Formalities Please take note: These specifications apply for bachelor’s and master’s theses. You can find the regulations applying to the diploma thesis in the §§ of the ADPO (General Academic and Examination Regulations) and the FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations) of your degree program.

Tips and Tricks

Here, you will find some tips, literature and links we have compiled to help you succeed in writing your thesis. Tips and Tricks

English Writing Center and Schreibberatung German as a Foreign Language

The English Writing Center and the Schreibberatung German as a Foreign Language offer free one-to-one consulting in English or German writing to all members of the TUM community. The Center is staffed by both professional language instructors and student peer tutors, all of whom are native English or German speakers. They help you develop long-term proficiency in English or German writing, while polishing your actual texts in the process.

Having trouble choosing a topic for your bachelor’s or master’s thesis? Our Themenbörse posts current thesis topics from across the spectrum of TUM’s academic departments.

Please observe the  e-mail etiquette .

Personal advising sessions with  General Student Advising  by appointment

Monday, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. Tuesday, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. (Student Information only) Wednesday, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

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Submission of dissertation

All doctoral candidates who  entered into the Doctoral Candidacy List of their Department after January 1st, 2014 ,   can apply for submission via their DocGS profile . In this case, just click on „Application on submission“ in your DocGS progress tree.  It does not matter whether you are doing your doctorate according to the most current version (valid since October 2021) or a previous version (January 2014).  Please note that this function will only be available after you have fulfilled all the mandatory elements of TUM-GS.

Application for submission in DocGS

1. Click on  "submission of dissertation" i n your DocGS progress tree at the bottom.

2. Fill out your application completely. Please make sure that your personal details are correct (for example your name must be identical to official identification documents).

3. Upload the following documents in PDF format . Please note that the original documents must be additionally submitted to the Center for Study and Teaching - Promotionen .

• dissertation ( with   title page ;  see Appendix 1 of the Doctoral Regulations ; date of submission will be completed when submitting the documents at CST )
• registration of your dissertation for the TUM University Bibliography (therefore you need an abstract of your dissertation, max. 500 characters in German and English). More information can be found on the website of the university:   https://www.ub.tum.de/en/ediss
• list of previous publications
• sworn statement in German  (for an English translation, see Appendix 2 of the Doctoral Regulations )
• a curriculum vitae in German (listing in particular your educational background)

If applicable:

• list of prior publications
• Publication-based dissertation:
• a) Version of the doctoral regulations valid since October 2021: If you wish to submit a publication-based dissertation , please note the specific guidelines for publication-based dissertations from your degree-awarding institution/School. In addition, a declaration of your own contribution and co-authors is required. It is important that you include the signatures of all co-authors . The document is only exemplary, depending on the number of publications the document can be shortened or expanded. If you have a very large number of co-authors for a publication, in exceptional cases and in consultation with your degree awarding institution/School, you may alternatively request the signatures of the heads of the respective research groups.
• b) Older Versions of the doctoral regulations: written agreement  from your supervisor (see Appendix 6 of the Doctoral Regulations)
• additional academic degrees (certified document)

4. Please click on „Submit“ and forward your application for submission electronically. If mandatory information is missing, your information will only be saved but not submitted. If you see the following notification and receive an e-mail confirmation too, your application has been successfully submitted.

Submitting the documents at the Center for Study and Teaching - Office of Doctoral Affairs

5.  Your application is now examined by your Dean’s Office/ Graduate Center. As soon as this examination is successful, you will receive an e-mail and are asked to print your application for submission from your DocGS account („My Progress": „Submission of Dissertation“).

6.  Send by mail/internal mail your documents to the  Center for Study and Teaching - Graduation Office and Academic Records,  Office of Doctoral Affairs .

Postal address:

TUM Center for Study and Teaching Graduation Office and Academic Records Office of Doctoral Affairs - Promotionen Arcisstr. 21 80333 München  Or make an appointment to personally submit your documents .

• Ute Stinzel Phone: +49 89 289 22248 TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology; TUM School of Life Sciences; TUM School of Natural Sciences
• Christa Reisenauer Phone: +49 89 289 25139 TUM School of Medicine and Health, TUM School of Management
• Alexander Seboka Phone: +49 89 289 22305 TUM School of Engineering and Design, TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, TUM Campus Straubing

7.  Hand in your signed application together with the following original documents at the CST - Promotionen:

• signed registration of your dissertation for the T UM University Bibliography in the original
• copy of the title page
• signed sworn statement  in German   (for an English translation, see Appendix 5 of the Doctoral Regulations)
• curriculum vitae in German  (listing in particular the candidate’s educational background)
• publication-based dissertation:  declaration of your own contribution and co-authors

Please note that all documents should be submitted to the TUM CST - Office of Doctoral Affairs  at least 14 business days before the next council meeting of your degree-awarding institution.

Doctoral candidates according to an older version of the Doctoral Regulations

All doctoral candidates who entered into the Doctoral Candidacy List of their Department before January 1st, 2014  will have to get a DocGS account first. For TUM-GS members , an account has already been created. They can log in to DocGS with their email address and click on " new password” . Doctoral candidates without TUM-GS membership have to create a new account. After completing the profile, doctoral candidates can now apply for "submission of the dissertation". If you have any questions on DocGS, please contact our DocGS Support Team via  [email protected] .

In addition, under older versions of the Doctoral Regulations prior to January 1, 2014, doctoral candidates must provide evidence of prior education , as this was not deposited in DocGS at the start of the dissertation. This includes:

• Diploma or Master’s certificate
• certificate of the final Diploma examination, Master’s examination or certification of the state examination, etc.
• for foreign university degrees: certificate of recognition of equivalence
• for medical doctorates: certificate of the medical or dental examination

Apart from these steps, the general regulations for submission should be followed.

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Guidelines Theses

0. requirements.

Certain requirements must be met before you can write your thesis with us. Please find out in advance whether you are eligible to write your thesis in accordance with the FPSO applicable to you (see Study Wiki ). Normally, at least 120 credits (Bachelor's thesis) or 75 credits (Master's thesis) must have been achieved. In order to be admitted to the Master's thesis, you must either be enrolled in the COME degree program, ITBE degree program or have chosen the specialization "Computational Modeling and Simulation" in the Civil Engineering degree program. If you have only chosen our content in your individual specialization or for the Cross Cutting Methods in the Environmental Engineering degree program, approval from the examination board is required.

In general, it is also possible to write an "External thesis" in collaboration with an industry partner. Please note that the thesis is student work , supervised by the University. Therefore, a topic needs to be carefully selected and must fit our current research goals. This requires an early consultation with your possible supervisor. Furthermore, we expect students willing to write their thesis externally to prove the scientific research gap (e.g., by referencing recent journal or conference publications). And very important: We publish all work conducted at our chair according to good scientific practice. If the industry partner requires a non-disclosure agreement, we will not supervise the thesis.

If these requirements are met, proceed as described in the following sections:

1. Finding a topic

Please first check our Open theses section to see whether a topic of interest to you is advertised. Alternatively, if no topic matches your area of interest, you can also suggest a topic of your own or let us know your main focus so that we can put together a new topic for you.

Next, please contact us by e-mail at [email protected] . If you follow the link, you can use the ready-made e-mail and just add your information to the blocks in square brackets. It would also be helpful for us if you could additionally attach your transcript of records so that we can check the requirements quickly. If you would like to apply to a specific supervisor, please add their e-mail address to the list of recipients.

2. Thesis registration

Once all requirements have been met and a supervisor has been found, the work needs to be registered upfront. However, it is customary at our chair for you to write an Exposé before the definitive registration. This has the advantage that it gives the topic a contextual frame, and you can familiarize yourself in advance with the planned approach and timeline.

The exposé should have approx 2-4 pages and cover the following aspects:

• general problem description (approx 0.5 pages)
• summary of related works (please cite 5-10 relevant journal/conference publications, approx 1 page)
• identified research gap and preliminary hypothesis (approx. 0.5 - 1 page)
• intended approach/ methodology to solve the identified problems (approx. 0.5 - 1 page)
• preliminary timetable.

3. Writing the thesis

Please use our provided templates for your thesis (password for download will be provided by your supervisor):

• Word [.dotx]
• Latex [.zip]

The thesis can be written in German or English - please agree on the language with your supervisor upfront.

It is your duty to report the progress of your thesis to your supervisor on a regular basis.

Please use the resources provided by central services of TUM (e.g. TUM University Library for Databases, standards, ...):

• TUM Zitierleitfaden
• Scopus, WebOfScience, ...
• PeriNorm Portal
• English Writing Center

4. Submission

Please hand in one final version of your thesis as a pdf document directly to your supervisor in time. Additionally, all data, as well as your digital thesis, must be handed in via Sharepoint or Sync+Share .

• the final version of your thesis [.pdf]
• a redacted version of your thesis for our website (all personal data redacted) [.pdf]
• Title in german and English (max. 200 chars) [.txt]. They are inserted in your final transcript of records.
• Picture, depicting the content of your thesis ([.png], max. 200x200px) and abstract ([.txt], max. 200 words) for our website
• all relevant scientific data (Code, models, ...)

5. Presentation

The date of your thesis presentation will be defined by your supervisor. It will usually be within 1-2 weeks after the thesis handover. All CMS members will attend the presentation. If you want to invite external partners/guests, please inform your supervisor upfront.

Please use the provided template for your presentation: PowerPoint , Latex .

Our presentation monitors have a 16:9 ratio. We provide standard HDMI as well as ClickShare (USB, USB-C) for your presentation.

The presentation should be held in English unless otherwise agreed.

Do not exceed these times!

Rule of thumb: ~ 1 slide per minute - no full sentences on slides! Make use of images supporting your statements.

You will be informed about your final grade within one week after the presentation. The grade will be announced to our faculty's grading office in meantime.

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• TUM Entrepreneurship Research Institute
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Guidelines and Resources

Guidelines for theses, papers and reports

This document specifies important guidelines, information, and suggestions for theses, seminar papers, and reports written at our research group. Please read these guidelines carefully! It is required to comply to these guidelines for all your written work at our group.

For theses written at the Professorship for Strategic Entrepreneurship (Prof. Alexy), please also consider the document below.

Writing your thesis in Strategic Entrepreneurship

Declaration of Authorship ("Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung")

Templates for title pages

• for the Professorship of Strategic Entrepreneurship (Prof. Alexy)
• for the Professorship of Entrepreneurial Behavior (Prof. Breugst)
• for the Professorship of International Entrepreneurship (Prof. Milanov)
• for the Chair of Entrepreneurship (Prof. Patzelt)
• for the Chair of Entrepreneurial Education (Prof. Tryba)  
• for the Professorship of Entrepreneurship and Communities (Prof. Vedula)
• for the Professorship of Entrepreneurial Management (Prof. Zhao-Ding)

Template for team participation assessment

If you work in a team, you can assess the participation of your team members using the following form. The submission is voluntary and the form must be handed in with your seminar paper or project report latest.

Team participation assessment

Registration forms, credit transfer forms and additional documents

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Citation guide.

Thesis Guideline

Phase 0: finding a topic and application.

• Topic selection
• Look at our available topics for Bachelor’s Thesis, Master’s Thesis, Project Studies, or IDP at the Chair for Strategy and Organization
• Choose your own topic

In case you want to apply with your own topic, directly proceed to the application. However, make sure that the topic is aligned with our research.

• Application
• Application for a topic offered by the CSO

Please send your complete application as described on the respective offer page to the contact person stated. Usually, this includes your CV and a current transcript of records . If required, also include a tentative research idea (exposé) including the research question, hypotheses, data, methods, and possible outcomes with a tentative outline.

• Application with your own topic

Please send the application to a supervisor that fits your research idea. Include your CV and a current transcript of records as well as an exposé with the tentative research idea, including the research question, hypotheses, data, methods, possible outcomes, and a tentative outline. Please note that your proposed topic should be in line with one of the research topics of the CSO. Inform yourself and integrate a clear argument on why your topic fits with the CSO in your exposé.

Further information can be found in the guidelines on how to write a research proposal:

• Acceptance / Rejection

We will usually come back to you within 2 weeks. If you do not hear anything, please kindly remind us of your outstanding application by email.

Phase 1: Registration

• Once your application is approved, your supervisor will send you the link to the application form. We will then register you in the online portal of the TUM School of Management. By filling out the application form, you accept the ❗ Non-Disclosure Agreement .
• The official thesis registration  is approved by grade management  - not by our chair - it will take up to four weeks. If you have not received a confirmation after two months, please briefly contact Mrs. Eva Pongracz ( [email protected] ). However, you can already start working on it!

Phase 2: Writing the thesis

Thesis seminar.

It is compulsory for all students to study the materials in the thesis seminar of our chair when writing your thesis here. If you have questions beyond the provided material, you can attend the monthly Q&A sessions.

No registration is necessary for the thesis seminar as you will not receive extra ECTS credits Furthermore, no attendance is required for the Q&A sessions and you do not need to present your thesis.

You can find all information about the thesis seminar here:

Regular updates to your supervisor

In our team and in collaborations, we highly value conscientiousness, autonomy, and proactivity. Please send regular (about once per month) updates per email which concisely and shortly summarize the following points:

• what are you working on right now
• are you within your predefined timeline
• what challenges do you face at the moment
• what will you be working on until the next update
• questions that only your supervisor can answer

As a format we suggest attaching a PowerPoint presentation or Notion page so that we can effectively make comments.

Important milestones for updates are typically the following:

• Topic definition (if not specified through predefined topics)
• After you have read and know the literature:
• summary of what we already know about this topic
• what we don’t know about this topic and why it would be important to know
• your research question
• Your research model and empirical approach (that is: how do you want to answer your research question) . If you work (quantitative) empirical, your research model, hypotheses, and empirical approach.
• Your results and conclusions

For all other questions, please ask them in the Q&A sessions of our  thesis seminar .

Formatting guidelines

Being able to format your thesis according to the given specifications is an important skill. Therefore, we will not provide you with a word template or similar. Here are our guidelines:

For everything not specified, please refer to the APA Manual:

The cover page should look like this:

Template for declaration of authorship:

  https://www.ie.mgt.tum.de/fileadmin/w00cem/tim/Abschlussarbeiten/8_Declaration_of_Authorship_Master_s_Thesis.pdf

Optionally, a template for LaTeX incorporating the guidelines of our chair is available here: Thesis Template Chair for Strategy and Organization (APA7). To create a project, you have to log in with your TUM-ID (e.g. "ab12asdf") and your password. Documentation is available under  https://sharelatex.tum.de/learn .

Thesis Template Chair for Strategy and Organization (APA7) - LaTeX Template

An online LaTeX editor that’s easy to use. No installation, real-time collaboration, version control, hundreds of LaTeX templates, and more.

sharelatex.tum.de

Phase 3: Submission

The faculty has allowed solely digital submissions!

On the day of the submission deadline , send your thesis to [email protected] by 23:59 pm at the latest (and CC your supervisor). Of course, you are allowed to submit your thesis before the deadline. If the submission date falls on a public holiday or a weekend, you may submit your thesis on the next working day.

The following documents should be added to the submission:

• Signature to the page Declaration of Authorship
• Filled form Permission to View My Final Thesis

The subject of the email should be Thesis Submission Name/Matriculation Number: xxxxxx . You may choose the file names for the thesis and all the other documents. You can find more information in the information sheet in the download center on the website of TUM School of Management ( https://www.mgt.tum.de/download-center ).

All other supplementary files (codes, excel lists, power point slides, etc.) should be sent directly to the supervisor : Discuss with your supervisor how these files should be submitted.

Here is a list of all documents required to submit for your thesis:

• Final Thesis : Thesis (as word and pdf)
• All data, articles/chapters, statistics, literature, etc. – thus the whole input and all sources and references you used
• References of scientific literature compiled in an Excel-File
• Your project file from the literature management software, such as Citavi, Endnote, Mendeley, etc.
• Executive summary * : a short summary of your thesis (3-5 pages) (as word and pdf)

Optional: Prepare your executive summary as an article on medium ( https://medium.com/ , or any other free publication medium) and include a word document with the link to the article in the shared folder.

• Presentation on your thesis topic  (as ppt)
• Infographic on your thesis topic* (as ppt and PDF/JPEG)
• Notion page on your thesis topic* (should also contain your infographic and a link to the article if available)

For more details about submissions 2 to 5, please refer to the  thesis seminar.

Designation of documents:

• All non-literature documents (Word, Excel, PPT, etc): YYYYMMDD_name (e.g. 20200301_Mustermann_Report.ppt)
• Literature: Author(s)_(Year)_ Journal abbreviation_Title keyword (more than 2 Authors: 1. Author and et al.: e.g. Mustermann et al. .pdf)

In case some files are too large, you can send them via Dropbox, LRZ Sync&Share, Wetransfer or similar. Submit the files marked with a star (*) in addition  to this form:  https://forms.gle/qJBv4adescNZfEQn9

Please make sure to adhere to the formatting guidelines.

Phase 4: Assessment and next steps

Once you have submitted your thesis, we will grade it as soon as possible. The supervisor / examiner has 2 months to grade your thesis. We will enter your grade in the online portal of the TUM School of Management. Once your examiner has confirmed the grade in the portal, you are informed of the grade by the portal. After that, grade management will be publish you grade in TUMonline within 3-5 working days. The grade management will contact you regarding all further actions.

Congratulations!

What’s next?

If you wrote an excellent thesis, please consider publishing your thesis in Junior Management Science   in consultation with your supervisor . You can find more information at  https://jums.academy/ .

Please also consider the following resources that reward prices for excellent theses:

• GfHf-Nachwuchspreis  (Gesellschaft für Hochschulforschung)
• Preise der GI (Gesellschaft für Informatik), z.B.  der Fachgruppe Bildungstechnologien
• Nachwuchspreis GP  (Gesellschaft für Prozessmanagement)
• Diploma Thesis Award der SERES Unit  (Area: Enterprise Systems)
• Stiftung Industrieforschung  (Scholarship for theses)
• Schmalenbach Gesellschaft
• Global Student Innovation Challenge  by PDMA
• MLP Nachwuchspreis VHB  (Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft)
• Additional  TUM Information on prices and awards

You can download a suggested cover page and the Declaration of Authorship form from our website on http://www.wi.tum.de/programs/downloads/.

If the title of your thesis changes significantly while you are writing it, agree with you supervisor on a new title and get his/her agreement to the change. Once you got your supervisor’s agreement, write an e-mail to Grade Management (CCing you supervisor) where you inform them about the change of the title. If the change in title is only minor, you do not have to write to the Grade Management. Remember that the title of your thesis as per your original registration document will otherwise be printed on your final certificate.

• Fill in the registration form (Anmeldung_Fakultät_Formular.pdf)
• Send the registration form for final approval to your adviser at the Chair for

Strategy and Organization

• Hand in the signed registration form to the office management the Chair for

Strategy and Organization.

• After the successful registration you receive a registration mail by the TUM

School of Management (this process may take up to 4 weeks).

Yes. The Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) (NDA_Formular.pdf) should be read carefully, signed, and brought to the first or second meeting at the latest. Note that signing the NDA is required for a collaboration with our chair.

Our chair’s general rule is that it is not forbidden to use AI within your thesis – but: AI is an aid you are using and therefore you have to label for what you used AI. Please cite the AI in your text and clarify in the Appendix of your work, how you got that result from the AI (e.g., by sharing the link to your chat with ChatGPT or by sharing the prompts you used and the outcome the AI generated). But when you plan to use AI, please talk to your supervisor, if he/she allows that and if he/she wants a different documentation of your AI usage than stated here - your supervisors specifications are deciding if and how you can use AI.

Formal Requirements :

We would like to point out that in the background of the general internationalization of science and the economy, we highly recommend you write your thesis in English. Check with your supervisor if a German thesis is possible in your case.

• Most important information regarding the format and layout is included in the official guidelines of our chair and the thesis guidelines.
• Use the font style Times New Roman (font size 12) for the text. Write with a line spacing of 2.0. All margins should be 1 inch.

You should use the citation guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA) in your thesis. You can access the APA Publication Manual in the library.

• Bachelor thesis 30 (+/- 10%) pages of written text (not including tables, cover sheet, references, graphs, pictures, and appendix).
• Master thesis 50 (+/- 10%) pages of written text (not including tables, cover sheet, references, graphs, pictures, and appendix).

Following APA, a table of content is not necessary. However, we ask you to include a table of contents in your final thesis.

The thesis begins with a cover sheet, followed by an abstract, which is followed by your actual text. After the text follow the references, figures and tables and then possibly the appendix. At the very end you should attach your declaration of authorship. Current samples for the cover page and declaration of authorship can be found in the download

area of the faculty homepage (Guidelines_ScientificManuscripts.pdf).

Submission :

You can submit your thesis digitally to the Grade Management Team. A printed version is not required.

No. A scanned signature is not valid.

Yes, you are allowed to submit your thesis before the deadline.

If the submission date falls on a public holiday or a weekend, you may submit your thesis on the next working day (Monday to Friday) at the latest.

• Please check the respective mail address of the Grades and Examinations Office
• Printed copies may be handed in: At the Service Point of the TUM School of Management (room 1554). Mon - Fri from 9 am – 12:30 pm & 1:30 – 4 pm. On no account should you hand your thesis in to your supervisor, office management or the Examination Office. The Grade Management Team will pass on copies to your supervisor.

Please put it in a suitable envelope and hand it in at the main gate on Arcisstrasse 21, Munich. Use the address label which you can obtain on request from the Service Point or via mail from the relevant person in the Grade Management Team. In advance, get a “Permission to view this thesis" declaration form from the relevant person at the Service Point or in the Grades and Examinations Office, fill it in, and put it in the envelope together with your thesis.

Yes. A special authorization is not required.

Yes, but we advise you to hand it in digitally. If you do submit by post, you should send your thesis to the following address:

Technische Universität MünchenTUM School of Management Grade Management Bachelor or Master Arcisstrasse 2180333 Munich

Further FAQs from the TUM and the faculty:

Formales - TUM

cms.mgt.tum.de

Only for archival purposes: