Step 2 - Thesis committee

Your Examining Committee consists of:

• Your Supervisor(s) (all co-Supervisors must be present)
• One External Examiner (from outside the University)
• Three additional Examiners
  

Co-authors, or collaborators, of parts of the thesis cannot be part of the Examination Committee, except for the supervisor(s).    

The composition of an examining committee for Cotutelle students is subject to change, according to the terms of the agreement between both institutions.

Once an external examiner has been approved, there can be no communication between the external and the candidate until the defence is over.

An external examiner should ideally meet the following requirements:

• Be a full-time faculty member from academic institution outside of Concordia University. Ideally this should be a tenured Full Professor. However, Assistant and Associate Professors from outside institutions can be considered (at the discretion of the GPD) if they possess a strong research profile and an international reputation.
• Have no joint research, grants, publications or other collaboration with you or your supervisor for at least 6 years
• The reading and evaluation of the thesis as submitted should be the external examiner’s first exposure to your thesis

In the event that an examiner meeting these criteria cannot be found, the following alternatives may be acceptable, following a justification from the GPD sent to the Associate Dean, Student Affairs and Postdoctoral Studies, along with the Doctoral Thesis Committee Form:

• Assistant and Associate Professors with a strong research profile and an international reputation
• Non-Academic (Industry, Government, Community)
• Tenured Academic Librarians

The School of Graduate Studies reserves the right to reject external examiners not meeting the above criteria; in these cases, an alternate external examiner must be found by the program within 1 week of initial submission of the above mentioned Committee form.