Your thesis committee will get appointed by the Examinations Board , following a proposal by your supervisor. As the examinee, you should not be personally involved in the selection of the committee members, but you can mention preferences to your supervisor. The process of appointing the committee must begin at least one full month before the envisaged defense date.

The committee is chaired by a member of the Examinations Board who has the final say about the composition of the committee and all matters of procedure in the committee.

In case of a summer defense (June, July, August) the first step is to visit the defense schedule, pick a slot and send an email to mol-illc at uva.nl to book it. The slot determines the chair of the defense committee.

In case of defenses during the rest of the year, the first step is that your supervisor asks the Examinations Board (via examiw-science at uva.nl) to appoint a chair of the thesis committee; if there is a canonical candidate for this, the supervisor can cc this request to the appropriate person.

After that, your supervisor should send proposals for members of the committee to the chair who will then decide the composition of the committee according to the following rules:

The committee consists of the chair, your supervisor(s), and at least one independent committee member, not involved in the supervision of your thesis. Typical thesis committees have four or five members. The committee must satisfy the following requirements:

• All committee members must hold an MSc or equivalent degree.
• At least three committee members must have a PhD.
• At least two committee members (possibly including the chair) must be experts who were not involved with the supervision. The number of these experts must not be smaller than the number of supervisors.
• The majority of the committee members should be affiliated with the ILLC (exceptions to this rule may be granted by the Examinations Board in exceptional cases).

All committee members should be physically present at the defense (again, exceptions may be granted under special circumstances).

In case of defenses outside summer either you or your supervisor should coordinate the discussion of a suitable date and time for the defense with the chair of your committee and its members.

Please note that the MSc Logic has no budget to reimburse any travel expenses incurred by members of the committee in order to attend your defense.

Full details regarding the appointment and composition of the thesis defense committee are available in the Rules and Guidelines of the Examinations Board Logic (RRvE).