The purpose of the supervision agreement is to encourage joint consideration between doctoral candidates and supervisors of the organisation of the student-teacher relationship and to document the results. This increases the commitment to and transparency of the supervision process for both parties.

The supervision agreement concluded can and should be reviewed together at regular intervals and revised if necessary.

Since the amendment of the Rhineland Palatinate Higher Education Act in 2020 (in German), the conclusion of a supervision agreement within a reasonable period of time following their acceptance has been mandatory for all new doctoral candidates.

Some faculties have already developed their own subject-specific templates for supervision agreements:

Faculty 01, Catholic Theology and Protestant Theology (in German)

Faculty 05 (Philosophy and Philology) (in German)

Faculty 06 (Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies) (in German)

Faculty 07 (History and Cultural Studies)

Faculty 09 (Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Geography and Geosciences)

Faculty 10 (Biology) (in German)

Mainz Research School of Translational Biomedicine

Otherwise we recommend the use of the sample supervision agreement (in German) of the Gutenberg Council for Academic Careers. This is not a form with rigid specifications, but rather a practical aid for supervisors and doctoral candidates, which can be flexibly adapted to the specific conditions of the a particular doctoral project through joint discussion.

Further information and explanations can be found in the Guidelines for the Supervision Agreement adopted by the JGU (University) Senate on April 28, 2017.

The GSHS also provides a checklist for supervision interviews prepared specially for the humanities and social sciences. Not all topics are equally important for all doctoral projects, but the checklist can provide an overview of potentially relevant aspects.