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The doctoral personal study plan (DPSP) is used at Aalto University to support doctoral students in managing their own doctoral studies and doctoral thesis projects. The DPSP tool also helps in avoiding communication challenges in supervision.

The instructions concerning DPSPs will be updated to replace the old instructions by the release date. They will be available at Doctoral personal study plan (DPSP).

Transition from old to new

All doctoral students who have started their studies from March 2026 onwards will be making their first DPSPs with the new DPSP tool. If you have started before this and have uploaded your DPSP into MyStudies according to the old instructions as a pdf compilation, please note the following:

• A DPSP approved by your supervising professor that is found in the Advisory Notes section of MyStudies with an approval note by your supervising professor (or the doctoral education services) will remain there and stay valid, if there are no changes to it.
• Those documents saved in the DPSP tasks that have not been officially approved in the system according to the old instructions (not found in the Advisory Notes section) will eventually be deleted from the system. Once the deletion date is decided, there will be a separate announcement well in advance.

We recommend that all doctoral students start using the new DPSP tool, but as long as a previous version approved in the system stays valid content-wise, an old DPSP is enough to have. If you do not have a DPSP approved in the system and located in the Advisory Notes section, you should make a doctoral personal study plan with the new tool.

According to the degree regulations on doctoral education, each doctoral student should have a DPSP. The guideline is to discuss it with the supervising professor twice a year. The new tool helps to keep DPSP content up to date with easy editing possibilities. Moreover, the method of approval for supervising professors has been streamlined and made easier in Student Success Hub.

In Spring 2026, we require all doctoral students that have started from March 2026 onwards to make their DPSP with the new tool. In Autumn 2026, all doctoral students should have a DPSP made with the new tool or an old DPSP that is accepted in the system according to the old instructions as described above.

Possible temporary shortcomings in supervision information

The new DPSP tool automatically retrieves supervision team information (supervising professor, thesis advisors) from the system. Especially for older students, there may some shortcomings in the information, because there have been changes to how Aalto external thesis advisors and co-supervisors are recorded into the system. The doctoral education services are working on the data migration. However, if you need to update your supervision plan as part of your DPSP and you note some information is missing, please contact your doctoral programme’s Doctoral education services for a quick fix to the information.