The Comprehensive Exams shall be taken publicly in front of a committee with three members. The committee shall consist of at least three members, at least one of whom is not employed by the University. The committee chair shall be a professor, professor emeritus, research professor or associate professor with habilitation at the University. Only persons with academic degrees (PhD or higher) may be on the exam committee.

The mentor/supervisor of the doctoral student may be present at the comprehensive examination but may not act as an examiner and may not take part in the student’s evaluation.

Only doctoral students who have completed the Training and Research Period curriculum (120 credit) and the Digital Humanities workshop may attend the Comprehensive Exam.

Comprehensive examinations shall be held in the examination periods specified in the academic year calendar. The comprehensive examinations shall be scheduled so that a retake exam can be held by no later than 15 February pertaining to the winter examination period and by no later than 15 September of the ensuing academic year pertaining to the spring examination period.

The members of the committee as well as the theoretical subjects are appointed by the Doctoral Council of the Faculty of Humanities, based on the proposal by the doctoral program responsible.

Applications for the comprehensive examination held in the spring examination period shall be turned in by 31 March of the given year and applications for the comprehensive examination held in the winter examination period shall be turned in by 31 October of the given year (For exact deadlines please check the academic calendar.)

Along with the application for the Comprehensive Examination, students have to attach the following documents. 

• Application form with proposals for the committee and the theoretical subjects of the exam. (The name of the document should be jelentkezés_SURNAME_GIVEN NAME.pdf)​​
  • Accepted file formats: pdf, doc, docx, rar, zip, 7z, jpg, png, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx
• List of Publications (if any) from MTMT (Hungarian Science Bibliography) 
• At least two author's sheet (ca.: 80 000 characters) in the topic of the dissertation (may be some chapters from the dissertation)
• Research Plan for the Research and Dissertation Period
• Review of the student’s performance in the Training and Research Period and permission for the Exam by the mentor/supervisor
• Additional documents for the students of Doctoral School of Literary Studies:
  • Work Report for the Application for the Comprehensive Examination (form)
  • Extended vocational bibliography (form)

The applicant should submit the documents via the online application system. The format of the documents can be .word or .pdf.

The Department of Doctoral and Academic Affairs shall not be notified about the date of the comprehensive examination. The DoDAA will send all the necessary documents (including the protocols of the exam) to the examination committee before the beginning of the exam period. After the exam, the signed and dated protocols shall be submitted to the DoDAA, where the results will be entered into the NEPTUN system.   

Parts of the Comprehensive Exam:

1. Theoretical Part - comprehensive evaluation of the Student’s knowledge acquired in the training and research phase of the doctoral programme:

1.1 Main Topic -  concerns the comprehensive disciplinary contexts of the doctoral dissertation (from the topics introduced by the doctoral programs, for details ask your mentor/supervisor or the head of your program)

1.2 Secondary Topic - will be specified by the doctoral program at the time of application

2. Dissertation Part:

The examinee must give a presentation on the progress made in the topic of the dissertation and his/her research plan for the second period. The committee evaluates the submitted (2 author’s sheet) work and the presentation together.

The theoretical as well as the dissertation part will be assessed based on two scale system (pass or fail). The whole comprehensive exam will be assessed on two scale (pass, fail).

In case of failing one or both parts of the Theoretical Part, the exam may be retaken in the same exam period on the day appointed for re-examinations. The Dissertation Part is also repeatable in case of a fail.

In special cases postponing the Comprehensive Exam may be requested in the same exam period until the deadline for the re-examination.

Students who fail to take the Comprehensive Exam by the end of the 4th semester (until the deadline of the re-examination period), or should fail the Comprehensive Exam (even the re-examination) lose their student status automatically.