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Approval of Courses

Rules and guidelines

During your PhD programme, you must complete courses and other activities corresponding to 30 ECTS credits. The PhD Committee assesses all course activities based on their scientific level and relevance. 1 ECTS corresponds to 25–30 hours of work at PhD level. 


Registering Course Activities in PhDWeb

Courses must be registered in PhDWeb with proper documentation and then submitted for approval. It is important that you upload all your course activities, as we extract all information from PhDWeb when we initiate your evaluation forms and when we prepare your PhD certificate and the accompanying course supplement when you are awarded your PhD degree.

 


  • At least 15 ECTS must consist of PhD-level courses with scientific content.
  • You are expected to have at least 15 ECTS approved by your mid-term evaluation. A plan for the remaining activities must also be in place at this stage.
  • All activities must be completed before the third evaluation.
  • You must complete the mandatory course “Responsible Conduct of Research”.
  • The PhD School recommends that all course activities are completed within the first 24 months of the programme.

In general, all activities must be registered in PhDWeb with the corresponding documentation followed by a submission of the form "course activities for approval". You will be notified on the outcome as soon as the form has been assessed by the head of the PhD committee. 

 

  • PhD courses from Danish universities: ECTS credits are recognised as awarded by the host institution
  • Courses from abroad or outside Danish universities: May be approved following an individual academic assessment
  • MSc courses: May be approved at 50% of their ECTS value if they are relevant to your PhD project
  • Advanced international courses (MSc/PhD level): May be approved with a higher ECTS value upon application, typically two-thirds of the MSc ECTS
  • Scientific conferences:
    • Participation: 1 ECTS
    • Presentation of a paper: additional 1 ECTS
    • Maximum: 2 ECTS per conference
  • Self-study or reading groups: Must be supervised and include some form of assessment or evaluation

If you are unsure whether an activity is eligible or how many ECTS it may carry, you can request a pre-assessment by sending a course description and/or other relevant information to: phdsek@sam.sdu.dk.

Pre-assessed activities must be submitted together with your final application for approval.

Courses in teaching or dissemination methods should not be included in your course portfolio. These may instead be counted as part of your knowledge dissemination activities.

Each time you have completed an ECTS-awarding activity, you must register the activity in PhDWeb and upload certification for your participation in the activity. When you have registered all your new activities, you must start the digital form “Course activities for approval”. 

The rules for documentation are:

  1. Courses held at Danish universities: upload only course certificate.
  2. Courses held at international universities: uploade course certificate and course description in one file.
  3. Conferences: upload conference description and programme in one file. Add participation certificate if issued.
  4. Summer schools: upload course certificate and course description in one file.

  1. Log in to PhDWeb and click on “info page”. Scroll down to “courses” and click on “add new course activity”.
  2. Select “course type”. If you select “other/andet”, two new fields will appear titled “type”. Enter the type of activity you are adding here.
  3. Fill out “course title” in the language of the course title.
  4. “Place of course” refers to the institution that offered the course activity, e.g. University of Southern Denmark.
  5. Skip “credits”.
  6. “Date of exam” is the last day you participated in a course activity, or the date stated on your course certificate.

    7.  

  7. Click “select file” and locate your course certificate. Click “open”
  8. Click ”submit”.

  1. Scroll back to the top and click “Digital Forms” or go back to the front page and click “Digital Forms”
  2. Scroll down to the section “Assign (start) a digital form”, find “Course activities for approval” and click “start”.



  3. There are no sections for you to fill out. The next step is to wait up to 1 month for the courses to be approved. You will be notified once they have been approved.

Last Updated 02.06.2026