There is one set of PhD-regulations for the PhD-degree from UiB. Faculties may have special adaptations to the institutional rules. All questions regarding doctoral education will be treated by a faculty research committee or a PhD committee. The faculties is responsible for the admission and doctoral defence. The faculties coordinate most research courses offered in the doctoral training, and manage the yearly monitoring of the PhD-candidate study progress and the reporting system. The PhD-candidates must report annually their progress of their PhD-study (progress in thesis writing and training component).

Research environment

The doctoral training takes place in an active research environment at UiB departments or at UiB's partners, such as research institutes. This active research environment is either a research group and/or a research school, or a combination of the two. Some faculties organise all their doctoral training in research schools, whereas others use research schools for interdisciplinary and/or thematic research training. All faculties offer PhD candidates an opportunity to belong to a research group and/or a research school. In doctoral training, the research groups and research schools are complementary and, as a PhD candidate, one can be affiliated to both a research group and a research school.

Research groups

A research group normally consists of senior researchers, post-doctoral fellows, several PhD candidates and Master's students with similar research interests. Sometimes, more than one PhD candidate share research questions in a large research project led by one of the senior academics. The structure and size of the group varies in and across faculties and departments.