Step 1: Meet threshold requirements

You must meet the threshold requirements for admission. Admission requirements for a postgraduate degree in education include:

• Graduating with a master’s degree in a thesis track in education or a related discipline with a high average grade (at least 90), a thesis (final paper) graded at least 90, and a final exam (where present) graded at least 85.
• Identifying a supervisor (in some cases two) who is an expert in the appropriate field, is authorized to supervise a dissertation, and has provided preliminary agreement to supervise your work. Faculty members in the standard track at lecturer level or higher are authorized to supervise dissertations. Faculty members who are not senior lecturers can supervise a dissertation together with a regular-track tenured Hebrew University faculty member. Hebrew University faculty members in a fellowship track (not external instructors) may be approved ad-hoc by the dean and chair of the Authority for Research Students if supervising together with an authorized faculty member. Supervision by an emeritus faculty member requires the approval of the head of the School of Education.
  • Junior faculty members at instructor level (who are supervising a dissertation together with a regular-track senior faculty member) may only supervise one Stage 1 (probationary) student at a time. Junior faculty may supervise a second student only after the first student has declared candidacy and confirmed candidacy (advanced to Stage 2).
  • As a rule, the Authority for Research Students’ code of practice limits standard-track faculty members to supervision of up to 5 postgraduate students at a time. Any exceptions to this procedure must be approved by the Authority for Research Students.

Step 2: Applying for candidacy

This is how you apply for candidacy:

• After you have selected a supervisor, you will apply for candidacy for a doctoral degree in education at the Authority for Research Students.
• Submit a pre-proposal document of about two pages to the School of Education’s Doctoral Committee. This document must address everything listed above and explicitly state the study’s goal, theoretical grounds of the research question, rationale for conducting the study, research population (or the studied subject), research methods, preliminary work program, and potential contribution to science. This document is the basis of the research proposal which will be submitted to the dissertation committee to confirm candidacy. We expect that focusing candidates on this document helps them formulate a research proposal within one year. The document submitted to the Doctoral Committee must be fully coordinated with, approved, and signed by the supervisor (Supervisor approval of pre-proposal). Pre-proposals are approved by the Doctoral Committee. Please note that advancement to candidacy (submitting your proposal) sometimes progresses faster, so if you are ready before the end of year and a half since starting Stage 1 you may submit your proposal earlier and advance to candidacy. The structure and content of the pre-proposal document have been established by the School of Education’s Doctoral Committee. Submit your pre-proposal and supervisor approval to the School of Education’s Doctoral Committee coordinator Ms. Noa Bibi-Solstein.
• After confirming that your document meets the requirements you will be interviewed by the confirmation committee. Probationary admission by the Authority for Research Students’ is contingent on the candidate’s admission by the Doctoral Committee. When the Doctoral Committee meets candidates, its members evaluate whether you are ready for a postgraduate program, and whether you can be expected to advance to candidacy within 18 months (after appointing a dissertation committee and receiving its approval of your proposal). To do so, the committee members aim to gain an impression of the candidate’s familiarity with research in the proposed field, how clear and focused the research question is, and whether there is a general research plan.