FAQ - Master- Economics, Law and Social Sciences

The Master's thesis is usually written in the last Master's degree year. 

As a rule, there are the following application and submission deadlines: 

In Summer semester:

by 15 March: complete application to the Dean's Office
Issue of the approved topic by 1 April --> Processing time 5 months
Submission of the thesis by 31 August 

In Winter seminar:

by 15 September: complete application to the Dean's Office
Issue of the approved topic by 1 October --> Processing time 5 months
Submission of the thesis by 28 February 
Deviations are only possible in exceptional cases and upon justified application!

This should be discussed in advance with the respective examiner/supervisor of the Master's thesis. For more information on the examiner/supervisor, see 5. 

The Master's thesis is a written or artistic-practical examination performance with which the candidate is to show that he/she is able to independently work on a problem from the chosen Master's programme within a specified time using scientific methods and to present the results in an appropriate manner.

The topic of the Master's thesis must be related to the Master's programme.

The Master's thesis must be registered in writing using the form.

The topic of the Master's thesis and the reviewers are determined by the examination board. The candidate may express a wish for a topic. The topic is issued by the Dean's Office. The topic and date are to be recorded.

The processing time for the Master's thesis is 5 months. The topic, task and scope of the Master's thesis are to be limited by the supervisor in such a way that the deadline for completing the Master's thesis can be met. As a rule, the scope of the Master's thesis should not exceed approx. 25,000 words.

The final module has a value of 30 LP. This consists of 27 LP for the MA thesis itself and 3 LP for an ungraded colloquium.

At this point, reference can be made to § 19 of the Framework Examination Regulations:

Only professors and other persons authorised to conduct examinations may be appointed as examiners who, unless compelling reasons require a deviation, exercise independent teaching responsibility in the Master's programme to which the examination relates.

The Master's thesis is passed if the calculated grade is at least 4.00 or two out of three examiners assess the thesis as "sufficient", in which case the grade is at least 4.00. The grade is calculated from the average of the assessments. The first two decimal places after the decimal point are taken into account, all other places are deleted without rounding. The grade of the Master's thesis is thus calculated as follows: The assessments of the examiners are added and divided by the number of examiners.

Until summer semester 2021

The Master's thesis must be submitted in triplicate and once electronically to the chairperson of the examination committee via the dean's office by the deadline. The date of submission is to be recorded in the records.

From WS 2021/22: Resolution of the M-PA on the submission of MA theses via Wiseflow

The M Examination Committee decides that from the winter semester 2020/21 all Master's theses must be submitted digitally as a PDF via the WISEFlow platform.
The obligation to submit printed versions will be reduced to one copy.
The printed copy must be accompanied by a handwritten and signed declaration of honour and a declaration of conformity (templates).

The entire resolution can be found here   
The PDF document must not exceed 20 MB in size. In addition to this file, another file with attachments or appendices may be uploaded (1 GB). Please note the information sheet on submitting Master's theses via WISEflow.
Further information on WISEflow can be found here

Data protection

All submitted work is subjected to a plagiarism check and stored on the University of Erfurt server for further plagiarism checks. For data protection reasons, therefore, please avoid any information that contains personal data about you or other persons. WISEflow generates a cover sheet for your work that complies with data protection regulations. You only need to add the title of your paper here.

Also, do not upload any additional materials that contain sensitive and/or personal data. Often, these materials are not required for the review. If such file attachments are required for the review, they must be anonymised. Please be sure to discuss with your examiners which attachments should be submitted before uploading files to WISEFlow.

Changing, adding to or returning the topic of the Master's thesis requires firstly the consent of the supervisor and secondly a written application to and approval by the examination board.
If you submit the Master's thesis with a changed topic (title) that was not applied for and approved in advance, the thesis will not be accepted and will be considered failed. This regulation also applies to the addition of subtitles!

As a rule, the Master's thesis is to be assessed by two examiners. One of them should be the supervisor of the Master's thesis. The thesis is to be assessed by a third examiner if the marks of the first and second examiners differ by more than 2.0 marks or if only one of the two examiners assesses the thesis as "not sufficient".

The grade is calculated from the mean value of the evaluations. The first two decimal places after the decimal point are taken into account, all other places are deleted without rounding. The grade of the Master's thesis is thus calculated as follows: The assessments of the examiners are added and divided by the number of examiners.

The assessment procedure must be completed after 8 weeks at the latest.

The Master's thesis can be repeated once if it is assessed as " not sufficient".

In this case, please contact the MA examination board. They will then discuss in each individual case how much influence this will have on your progress in the MA work. If necessary, you will be granted a postponement.

In this case, the processing time will be extended by the period of illness if proof of illness is available.

This is done automatically after the proof of illness has been submitted to SUL and the Dean's Office. After processing, you will receive a document with the new submission date.

In justified individual cases, an extension of the deadline can be requested from the M Examination Board. If you wish to submit an application to the Examination Committee, please note that it must be submitted at least 7 days before the deadline.

Please submit the following documents to the M Examination Board:

• Formal application stating the original deadline (incl. all previous extensions), the number of days of the requested extension and a detailed justification.
• Evidence helpful in substantiating the application, e.g.: Education certificate, information on closing times of childcare facilities, etc.
• Endorsement from the primary examiner that the requested extension seems appropriate to complete the work within the requested time limit (can be done by email).

Information in this regard is available on the central pages of the Department "Studium und Lehre": 

The "Rahmenprüfungsordnung" is available  here

The "Studienordnung der Staatswissenschaften" is available here 

You can find the application for the issue of a Master's thesis here.