Public defence announcement and press release of defence
Public defence announcement
The public defence announcement is a concise, plain-language description of the thesis, aimed at the general public and media.
To attract media and stakeholders both in Finland and abroad, write your announcement also in Finnish (or in Swedish), in addition to English. If you need assistance in writing the press release in Finnish, ask help from your research group, colleagues or fellow students or your thesis advisor. Using Google Translate is not recommended.
Submit your announcement text and defence details at least 15 days before the defence to your doctoral programme via Webropol form (see link below). Your School creates an event of your public defence at website under Events. Your annoucement text will be added to the event. You can distribute the link to all interested parties, including research group/department, family, cooperation partners, professional publications etc.
Be concise and answer the following questions:
- What was the subject of the study?
- What was the purpose of the study?
- How relevant is the thesis to other research in the field?
- What results were obtained? (What was the main result of the study? What new information does the research bring?)
- Where and how the information can be applied?
- What kind of conclusions can be drawn from the results?
The press release should not exceed 2500 characters.
After writing the text, ask a friend or family member who doesn't know your field of study to read it - if they don't understand it, modify accordingly. Try to think of what is especially interesting for the wider public. How can you contextualise your thesis with current affairs or general knowledge?
Besides the announcement text, you can prepare to add also the following to your defence announcement. Please note that these texts are then needed also in Finnish/Swedish.
Headnote (max 140 characters)
The opening that decribes the thesis in simplified form (not the title of the thesis). If you add opening text, we will use it to replace the title in liftups (event listings) and also add it to the top of the event page. The title of the thesis will always remain on the text paragraph of the event.
Image in the public defence announcement
A default image will be added to all public defence announcements. If you want, you can add some other image to your announcement. Also, please ensure that you can use the picture in your public defence announcement. The picture has to be horizontal (preferably 16:9 in ratio), high in resolution (size 300 kB is sufficient, but max. 5 MB). Accepted file types are jpg and png. Please note that if you add an image, alternative text for it is also required.
Short description of the image, compulsory with the image (max 140 characters), in English and in Finnish/Swedish
Alternative text is used by screen readers and displayed when the image is not loaded. When writing the text, take into account that the person will not see the image.
If you have difficulties with the Finnish/Swedish translation, you can also allow us to use AI to formulate an alternative text of the image. Please mention this then instead of the translation.
Image caption
This will be shown under the image.
Include at least the copyright information of the image (you, or another copyright owner / photographer).
If you wish, you may also add a title/caption to the image.
Key words of your thesis (in English and Finnish/Swedish)
Your contact information
Suitable options for contact information are for example an email address, phone number, link to your LinkedIn profile or link to the web page of your research group. The purpose of this information is to give the media a possibility to contact you if they are interested in your defence.
For statistical purposes, we also collect information about Aalto's Research Infrastructures that you have utilized. It is very important to inform the infrastructures via the defence announcement form because the data is not collected anywhere else.
Press release
Discuss with the custos if it is worthwhile to advertise your thesis and the defence outside the Aalto community. You can prepare a press release for this purpose (possible targets: STT, Tekniikka & Talous, science journals, etc.).
It's good to start planning the press release already at the early stage, for example during pre-examination.
Preparing for the public defence
Instructions for planning and arranging public defences (for doctoral student and custos)
