Docfile is the online tool for the administration of your doctorate in the following Faculties:

• Faculty of Human Sciences
• Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences

Doctoral candidates of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities must register with a.r.t.e.s. access.

Docfile was developed in close cooperation with the faculties in order to administrate your doctorate digitally from the application for admission as a doctoral candidate to the printing of the doctoral certificate.

The use of Docfile enables the following features for doctoral candidates:

• Automatic notifications for administrative process steps
• Update personal and contact data online
• Providing application forms for all matters concerning your doctorate
• Automated preparation of printable forms
• Simplified communication with the doctoral office and graduate institutions

If you have any questions regarding the use of Docfile, please contact the Main Docfile Support of the AMC via e-mail: docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de

In case of technical problems please contact the Helpdesk of the IT Center University of Cologne (ITCC): ITCC-Helpdesk

For subject-specific questions, please contact the Docfile Support of your faculty.

Faculty of Human Sciences
hf-docfile@uni-koeln.de

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
mnf-promotionen@uni-koeln.de

Faculty of Medicine
medfak-promotion@uni-koeln.de

Faculty of Law
jura-docfile@uni-koeln.de

Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences
promotion@wiso.uni-koeln.de

Important: Please only use your uniKIM student account (username@smail.uni-koeln.de) to register in Docfile and not - if available - your uniKIM staff account* (for staff at the UoC or University Hospital Cologne: username@uni-koeln.de, username@verw.uni-koeln.de or username@uk-koeln.de). Please also make sure that the first names and surnames you enter in Docfile are identical to those on your identification document (ID card, passport, visa, etc.) and your uniKIM student account. Also see FAQ "What should I attend to when entering my name in Docfile?“.

*If you‘re a staff member at the UoC or University Hospital Cologne and enrolled as a doctoral student, you will usually have two different uniKIM accounts: a uniKIM student account and a uniKIM staff account. Although it is technically possible to register in Docfile with the uniKIM staff account, this will lead to login problems later on.

General information on identity management at the University of Cologne (uniKIM) can be found here.

If you don't have an uniKIM user account, you can also register with a new Docata user account in Docfile. You will find this option on the registration page.

If you have any further questions about registration, please contact docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de.

Your names (first names and surnames) entered in Docfile must be identical to those on your identification document (ID card, passport, visa). This is essential for the smooth processing of your doctoral project and the issuing of official documents (e.g. doctoral certificate). Name changes (e.g. after marriage) should be made immediately in Docfile.

If you register with an uniKIM student account, please also make sure that the names you enter (especially several first names) are identical to those of your uniKIM student account (username@smail.uni-koeln.de).

A registration in Docfile with the uniKIM student account is possible for up to one year after exmatriculation. Your old uniKIM student account will be reactivated.

Persons who are admitted as doctoral candidates in Docfile will continue to be registered with uniKIM after exmatriculation and can continue to use their access data.

If you have registered with your uniKIM student account (e.g. uniKIM ID: xymzb2), please use the corresponding password. If you have forgotten your uniKIM password, please contact RRZK support here.

If you have registered with a Docata user account, please assign a new password here. 

If you have any questions regarding your user account or your user name, please contact the central Docfile Support: docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de

The application for admission as a doctoral candidate and application to open the doctorate proceedings (available soon) takes about 45 min.

Please have all required documents ready for the application.
As a rule, these are: degree certificates, course of study/registration certificates, higher education entrance qualification, if applicable, supervision commitment or agreement and, if applicable, certification from your graduate school.

Depending on how far you have already progressed with your application or registration, you have various options for changing your data.

If you have the state ‘Registered user’, you can change your details yourself at any time and, if necessary, save the processing and continue at a later date.

Please note that with the state ‘Applicant’ you can only change your data to a very limited extent. You can make changes to your contact details yourself. For all other changes please contact your doctoral office. In your Docfile account you will find the button 'Update contact details' under ‘Home’.

As an authorised doctoral candidate with the state ‘Admitted‘, you can update your data at any time. You will be informed once a year for a mandatory data update. On the 'Home' page of your Docfile account you will find a button ‘Update contact details'’ as well as 'Update status' for updating relevant data.

If, somehow, information cannot be changed, please contact the Docfile support of your faculty (also see FAQ "I need help registering in Docfile. Who should I contact?") to have it corrected.

Yes, the registration in Docfile is also required for doctoral candidates who have already been accepted by the faculty. As part of the conversion to digital doctoral administration, the use of Docfile is mandatory for all doctoral-related processes. Therefore, please also register if you have already been accepted as a doctoral candidate by the faculty. Soon, prospective doctoral candidates will be able to apply electronically for admission as doctoral candidates via Docfile.

In Docfile there are different information, which reflect the current processing state:

‘Applicant’ = This person has registered in Docfile and completed and submitted the digital application wizard for the ‘Admission as a doctoral candidate’.

'Admitted' = This person has been admitted to the faculty as a doctoral candidate.

In the course of the conversion to digital doctoral administration and the collection of data for the German Higher Education Statistics Act, the state information is currently being used to organise the subsequent registration of doctoral candidate data. If you have already been admitted as a doctoral candidate at the University of Cologne, but your state is still set to 'Applicant', you do not yet provide all necessary information for the German Higher Education Statistics Act. Please check this in Docfile and contact your doctoral office.

In order to carry out data verification for the German Higher Education Statistics Law, it is necessary to provide the following information in Docfile and upload a proof (as scan):

- University entrance qualification (e.g. Abiturzeugnis)
- Graduation certificates (e.g. Bachelor's/Master's certificates; for international degrees, please have the entire document including the transcript of records ready).
- Certificate of study progress (e.g. from KLIPS 2.0)

If you have provided all this information in Docfile together with the corresponding proofs, your details are complete. Please check your postgraduate record in Docfile and complete any pending information and, if applicable, upload any supporting documents in the documents section.

Further information on the recently modified German Higher Education Statistics Act can be found here.

Registration in Docfile involves creating a user account and completing the digital application wizard for 'Admission as a doctoral candidate' by submitting the entries on the last slide of the application wizard.

You will find the digital application wizard on the 'Home' page of your Docfile account after you have logged in. To open the wizard please click on 'Register in Docfile'.

Please contact your supervisor and your doctoral office directly to explane the cancellation of your doctorate. In order to exmatriculate as a doctoral student, you must also inform the Student Administrations Office regarding the cancellation of your doctorate and thus have to exmatriculate.

If you are thinking about discontinuing your doctorate, you can contact the staff of Albertus Magnus Center confidentially at any time. We will discuss the next steps with you and put you in contact with the appropriate office.

In the event of problems and conflicts, you can also contact the ombudsperson of your own faculty or any other.

Furthermore, you can also contact the general ombudsperson for junior scientists at the University of Cologne.

Please contact your supervisor and the relevant doctoral office directly.

In order to process your name change, it is always necessary to provide proof in your postgraduate record.

While the provision of German Higher Education Statistics Act-relevant data is mandatory, there are some optional data fields in Docfile. These are used for the administrative supervision of doctoral projects, the design of qualification measures and the quality assurance of doctorates. The University of Cologne relies on your assistance by answering optional questions in order to continuously expand and optimise the services offered to junior scientists. Your information will be processed anonymously for quality assurance purposes only.

Only administrators in the AMC can delete entered data.

Please contact us with any deletion requests via: docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de.

Once you have been admitted as a doctoral candidate in Docfile, you will find two options for changing your data on the 'Home' page of your Docfile account:

You can use the ‘Update contact details’ button to make changes to your general contact details. If the information cannot be changed, please contact docfile@verw.uni-koeln.de to have it corrected by Docfile support team. If you would like to change data relating to your promotion, please select the ‘Update status’ button.

We would like to ask you to keep your data in Docfile up to date at all times. As a doctoral candidate at the University of Cologne, you will be contacted once a year via e-mail regarding the mandatory data update.

With the state 'Registered user’ you can change your details yourself at any time and, if necessary, save the processing and continue at a later date.

Please note that with the state 'Applicant' you can only change your data to a very limited extent. You can make changes to your contact details yourself, for all other changes please contact your doctoral office. You will find an option to update your contact details on the 'Home' page of your Docfile account via the button 'Update contact details'.

As an authorised doctoral candidate (with state 'Admitted'), you can update your data at any time and make changes to your contact details yourself. Via the button 'Update contact details' on the 'Home' page of your Docfile account you can change your data. Once a year you will be automatically contacted for a mandatory data update.

To upload documents for the doctoral office, please proceed as follows:

Open the desired doctoral candidate file by clicking on the ‘D’ button under ‘My profile’ and select the file. Once you have opened the file, you will find the ‘Documents’ tab at the bottom left of the menu. Here you can see which documents have already been saved. To upload new documents, click on ‘Add document’. You can now select a document, name it and select the document type (e.g. care agreement). Click on ‘Save’ to finalise the upload.

To upload documents for your coordinator of the respective graduate institution, please proceed as follows:

Open the desired graduate file by clicking on the ‘G’ button under ‘My profile’ and select the file. Once you have opened the file, you will find the ‘Documents’ tab in the menu on the left. Here you can see which documents have already been uploaded. To upload new documents, click on ‘Add document’. You can now select a document, name it and select the document type (e.g. progress report). Click on ‘Save’ to finalise the upload.

Please note that in future you will upload relevant documents to Docfile only.

Since you will receive important information exclusively via Docfile in future, it is necessary to keep your data up to date at all times.

Registration in Docfile does not automatically lead to enrollment. This is only possible via the Student Application and the Student Administrations Office and must be done separately.