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Center for Higher Education
CDI building on the north campus, a white building © A. Krelaus​/​TU Dortmund
Guidelines for Writing a Master's Thesis

Points to take into account while writing your master's thesis

General

The topics you can choose for a master's thesis should be highly relevant for practice and policy and the thesis should to be empirically grounded.

Process of a master's thesis

  • Discuss a possible topic with Prof. Liudvika Leišytė.
  • Write a 2-page proposal (incl. title, table of contents and timeline of the thesis).
  • Get approval for this by Prof. Leišytė.
  • Prof. Leišytė will write a letter to "Prüfungsverwaltung" to declare that she will be your supervisor.
  • Write the thesis: in the process, make sure to send the questionnaire for surveys or interview schedules to Prof. Leišytė to get approval before you start your empirical work.
  • Submit to "Prüfungsverwaltung", Dez. 4.3.

Type and time frame of the master’s thesis

  • Generally, all theses at the Professorship are empirical (i.e. the self-organized collection and analysis of data is part of every thesis). This type of thesis has a time frame of 26 weeks (for details see the Prüfungsordnung).
  • In exceptional cases, theoretical theses are accepted. The specific topic must then be discussed and agreed on with Prof. Liudvika Leišytė. The time frame for this type of thesis is only 17 weeks.

The time frame (count of weeks) starts with the registration of your topic (a letter from Prof. Leišytė to the Prüfungsamt).

Topic of the thesis

The topic you choose should relate to the main research fields of the Professorship of Higher Education.
Possible Topics:

Governance

  1. Innovation through organizational learning
  2. Stakeholder representation and characteristics in the boards of universities
  3. Promotion of collaboration at German universities: policies and practices
  4. Changing governance of universities and implications of this for their performance
  5. The implementation of gender policies in German universities
  6. Characteristics and challenges of an inclusive professional organization

Academic entrepreneurship

  1. Policies of German universities to promote spin off creation in Germany
  2. The characteristics of founders of new high tech ventures in Germany
  3. Motivations of academic entrepreneurs to patent
  4. Gender and entrepreneurship: evidence from patenting activities

Academic profession and managerialism

  1. The role of new public management on publication behaviour of academics
  2. The role of performance based systems on grant acquisition of academics
  3. Implications of balancing working from home versus working in the office on performance
  4. Gender in academia: what are the gender differences in academic productivity?
  5. Challenges of integration of foreign knowledge workers in Germany

Preconditions

Master's theses at the Professorship of Higher Education are accepted according to certain preconditions and according to capacities of scientific staff:


For theses in the Master WiWi as well as the exam regulations (Prüfungsordnung) see:
WiWi: Master of Science

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Location & approach

The campus of TU Dort­mund University is located close to interstate junction Dort­mund West, where the Sauerlandlinie A 45 (Frankfurt-Dort­mund) crosses the Ruhrschnellweg B 1 / A 40. The best interstate exit to take from A 45 is "Dort­mund-Eichlinghofen" (closer to Campus Süd), and from B 1 / A 40 "Dort­mund-Dorstfeld" (closer to Campus Nord). Signs for the uni­ver­si­ty are located at both exits. Also, there is a new exit before you pass over the B 1-bridge leading into Dort­mund.

To get from Campus Nord to Campus Süd by car, there is the connection via Vogelpothsweg/Baroper Straße. We recommend you leave your car on one of the parking lots at Campus Nord and use the H-Bahn (suspended monorail system), which conveniently connects the two campuses.

 

TU Dort­mund University has its own train station ("Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät"). From there, suburban trains (S-Bahn) leave for Dort­mund main station ("Dort­mund Hauptbahnhof") and Düsseldorf main station via the "Düsseldorf Airport Train Station" (take S-Bahn number 1, which leaves every 15 or 30 minutes). The uni­ver­si­ty is easily reached from Bochum, Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Duisburg.

You can also take the bus or subway train from Dort­mund city to the uni­ver­si­ty: From Dort­mund main station, you can take any train bound for the Station "Stadtgarten", usually lines U41, U45, U 47 and U49. At "Stadtgarten" you switch trains and get on line U42 towards "Hombruch". Look out for the Station "An der Palmweide". From the bus stop just across the road, busses bound for TU Dort­mund University leave every ten minutes (445, 447 and 462). Another option is to take the subway routes U41, U45, U47 and U49 from Dort­mund main station to the stop "Dort­mund Kampstraße". From there, take U43 or U44 to the stop "Dort­mund Wittener Straße". Switch to bus line 447 and get off at "Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät S".

 

The H-Bahn is one of the hallmarks of TU Dort­mund University. There are two stations on Campus Nord. One ("Dort­mund Uni­ver­si­tät S") is directly located at the suburban train stop, which connects the uni­ver­si­ty directly with the city of Dort­mund and the rest of the Ruhr Area. Also from this station, there are connections to the "Technologiepark" and (via Campus Süd) Eichlinghofen. The other station is located at the dining hall at Campus Nord and offers a direct connection to Campus Süd every five minutes.

 

The AirportExpress is a fast and convenient means of transport from Dort­mund Airport (DTM) to Dort­mund Central Station, taking you there in little more than 20 minutes. From Dort­mund Central Station, you can continue to the uni­ver­si­ty campus by interurban railway (S-Bahn). A larger range of in­ter­na­tio­nal flight connections is offered at Düsseldorf Airport (DUS), which is about 60 kilometres away and can be directly reached by S-Bahn from the uni­ver­si­ty station.

 

Interactive map

The facilities of TU Dortmund University are spread over two campuses, the larger Campus North and the smaller Campus South. Additionally, some areas of the university are located in the adjacent "Technologiepark".

Campus Lageplan Zum Lageplan