The supervision of a doctoral researcher is agreed on by a supervision agreement at the beginning of the PhD thesis. The professor has the main responsibility for the supervision of the doctoral candidate. In most cases next to the professor a postdoctoral fellow or tenured scientist is identified who follows the doctoral candidate in his/her everyday work and serves as a contact person for occurring problems. Frequent group meetings guarantee a close contact of the supervising professor and the doctoral researcher. Already at the early stage of the PhD we identify the second referee of the thesis who serves as a further competent contact person during the whole doctoral thesis.
A mentor is also determined at the start of the thesis; His task is to make sure that the PhD thesis proceeds in the desired manner, he interacts in case of problems and can serve as a mediator in conflict situations.
