At TU Wien it helps to know which document answers which question, because two very different layers are at work.
The Satzungsteil Studienrechtliche Bestimmungen, the study-law part of the statutes, is the university-wide layer. It fixes who may supervise you, how long people have to assess your work, what a commissional examination looks like, and what happens to your thesis after it passes. Above it sits the federal Universitätsgesetz 2002 (UG 2002), which TU Wien's own rules cite constantly.
The faculty layer is where the things you probably searched for actually live: the cover page template, page limits if any, file size caps, which forms to sign and when the submission deadline falls. TU Wien does not centralise these. Your Studiendekanat (dean of studies office) does.
If a page on the internet tells you that "TU Wien requires" a particular margin or font, be sceptical. The statutes do not, and the answer that binds you comes from your faculty.
Topic and supervision
For a Diplomarbeit or Masterarbeit, you may propose the topic yourself or pick from your prospective supervisors' suggestions, within what your curriculum allows. Several students may work on one topic together, but only if each person's contribution stays separately assessable.
The registration step is easy to misread. Under § 22 (5) of the statutes, it is the supervisor who submits topic and supervision through TU Wien's information system before work starts, and they count as approved if the Studienrechtliches Organ has not prohibited them within one month. You may change supervisor at any point up to submission.
One provision is worth reading carefully before you start, because almost nobody does. § 22 (7) requires you and your supervisor to agree a written time frame for finishing, oriented on the ECTS credits your curriculum allocates to the thesis. If you overrun without giving reasons, the supervision relationship is first suspended (ruhend gestellt). Your supervisor may then dissolve it, provided they have contacted you repeatedly and set a deadline that you let pass. Dissolution needs approval from the Studienrechtliches Organ.
That is not a threat, it is a schedule. If your circumstances change, say so in writing early; the same paragraph requires the time frame to be extended by appropriate periods where the delay is not your fault.
For a dissertation, § 23 (5) puts the duty on you instead. You notify topic and supervisor in writing before starting, and you submit the Dissertationsvereinbarung (doctoral agreement) concluded with the university and your supervisor, which sets out the mutual obligations. Again, approval is deemed given if nothing is prohibited by formal decision within one month.
Writing, formatting and what you sign
There is no university-wide layout rule, so look at your faculty's guidance. The Informatics Studiendekanat's completion page is a good illustration of the level of detail you should expect from your own faculty:
| Faculty-level requirement (Informatics example) | Detail |
|---|---|
| Cover page | Official template, used unmodified, with the exact degree from your curriculum |
| Electronic file | PDF, maximum 20 MB, uploaded to TISS without signatures for the plagiarism check |
| Printed copy | One hard-bound copy with all signatures, to the dean's office |
| Abstracts | German and English, roughly half a page to one page each |
| Generative AI | Listed in an appendix, with where it was used and the prompts, your own contribution predominating |
Those numbers are Informatics rules, not TU Wien rules. Another faculty may cap the file differently, want a different template or say nothing about AI at all. Take the shape of the list, not the figures, and get the figures from your own dean's office.
Whatever your faculty asks, you will sign the F-975 Merkblatt für Verfasser/-innen von Hochschulschriften. It records that the thesis is your own independent work, that no sources or aids other than those named were used, and that you have not submitted it as an examination paper anywhere else.
How much outside help is allowed
TU Wien is unusually explicit about this, and the answer is more generous and more precise than most students assume. The Leitfaden zum Umgang mit Plagiaten states that independence is still intact where you seek help with sound academic method from your supervisor, teaching staff, tutors or experienced fellow students, or where friends or a proofreading service read the work to catch typing and spelling mistakes.
The boundary is drawn just as clearly: outside help stops being permissible once it goes beyond formal criteria such as orthography and someone other than you makes substantive corrections or reworks the content. Supervisors are bound by the same limit; they point you towards new perspectives, and processing that and revising the text is your job.
That is the line to brief anyone you work with. It is also the line our thesis writing support is designed around: structure, argument and clarity coaching that leaves the writing and the thinking yours.
The guideline names the forms it treats as plagiarism: Vollplagiat, Selbstplagiat (including reusing your own earlier text without saying so), Übersetzungsplagiat, Zitat ohne Beleg, unmarked paraphrasing, and ghostwriting.
Consequences
Where a positive assessment has been obtained by deception, the Studiendekan declares the assessment void under § 74 (2) UG 2002, and the void assessment still counts towards your total number of permitted attempts. Where a degree has already been conferred, it can be revoked under § 89 UG. Revoking a bachelor's degree can cascade: it can void the admission to the master's and doctoral studies built on it, and with it the assessments obtained there.
Continuing to use a revoked academic degree is an administrative offence, reportable to the district authority and punishable by a fine of up to 15,000 euros under § 116 (1) (2) UG.
Plagiarism software
Be accurate about what TU Wien actually says. The Leitfaden states that the electronic submission duty does not by itself amount to a central plagiarism check, and that the use of plagiarism software is a matter for each faculty. In practice TU Wien offers Turnitin-based checking both through TUWEL for coursework and through TISS for diploma and master's theses, and faculties such as Informatics require the upload for exactly that purpose. Ask your Studiendekanat what happens to your file rather than assuming either way.
Submission and assessment
Since 2013 an electronic submission duty has applied to dissertations, diploma theses and master's theses, set by a guideline of the Vice Rector for Teaching. In addition to the printed copy, an electronic copy is required as a PDF/A, or PDF from version 1.4, uploaded in TISS. Entering the bibliographic data, uploading the file and giving the declaration of consent all happen electronically in TISS.
Then the clock starts.
| Work | Who assesses | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Diplomarbeit / Masterarbeit | The supervisor, with a written report and a grade | 2 months from submission (§ 22 (8)) |
| Dissertation | At least two people who are not your supervisor | Maximum 4 months (§ 23 (6)) |
| Dissertation, third assessor after one negative review | A further appointed assessor | 2 months (§ 23 (7)) |
If a master's thesis is not assessed in time, you can apply to have it reassigned to someone else qualified. For dissertations, the statutes say that where possible one assessor should come from TU Wien and one from another faculty, another university or an external research institution, and that interdisciplinary work should have every discipline represented. Where assessors cannot agree a grade, the arithmetic mean of the proposed grades is taken and rounded, with anything above .5 rounded up.
After a negative assessment you have four weeks from notification to apply to the Studienrechtliches Organ for a review of the grade, and you must be told about that right no later than when the grade is announced.
The Rigorosum and the master's examination
§ 13 (1) of the statutes names two examinations that are always commissional: the examination in the subject Diplomarbeit in a master's programme, and the Rigorosum in a doctoral programme, which includes the defence of the dissertation. The detail sits in your curriculum, which must contain provisions on how the Rigorosum with dissertation defence is conducted.
What the statutes fix everywhere:
- The examination commission has at least three and at most five members, with one appointed as chair (§ 19 (1)).
- The allocation of examiners and the examination days are made known at least three weeks in advance, though a shorter arrangement is possible with your agreement (§ 17 (3)).
- You may propose particular examiners when you register, and those requests are to be accommodated where possible.
- You can deregister up to two working days before the examination day, in writing, with the Studiendekan for a commissional final examination (§ 18 (1)).
Faculties fill in the rest. Informatics, for example, runs a roughly one-hour final examination with about 20 minutes for the thesis presentation, the supervisor as first examiner and typically two further examiners, and gives you 10 days after being notified of a date to propose alternatives on a form. Expect the shape, confirm the specifics.
Deposit, reposiTUm and the embargo
§ 23a (1) is blunt: positively assessed academic and artistic works must be published by handing them to the TU Wien library, both bound and electronic, and electronic publication happens in TU Wien's publicly accessible repository, reposiTUm, which the library runs and Campus IT operates on DSpace. Theses sit in the Hochschulschriften collection.
The F-975 leaflet fills in the copyright picture: the printed version is placed in the TU Wien university library, and a dissertation also goes to the Austrian National Library. Your copyright stays with you, and later publication in print with a publisher remains possible. Public access through the library's server happens where there is no exclusion of use and you have consented.
The exclusion of use (Benützungssperre) under § 86 (4) UG 2002 works differently at TU Wien from some other Austrian universities, and the difference matters:
- It is pronounced first for two years.
- It can be extended once, on application, by a maximum of three further years.
- The extension application must reach the Studienrechtliches Organ in good time before the first period expires, and the grounds under § 86 (4) must still be met.
So five years is reachable, but only if you diarise the renewal. Nobody will chase you. If you are working with an industry partner or intend to publish with a commercial publisher first, discuss the embargo with your supervisor before submission, not afterwards.
Pre-submission checklist
- Curriculum read for thesis rules, and Studiendekanat guidance downloaded.
- Topic and supervision registered before work began, and the one-month approval window has passed.
- Written time frame for completion agreed with your supervisor, and any delay raised in writing.
- Dissertationsvereinbarung concluded and submitted, for doctoral candidates.
- Faculty cover page template used unmodified, with the exact degree title from the curriculum.
- Declaration of originality included and F-975 signed.
- Abstracts written in the languages your faculty requires.
- Any use of generative AI declared as your faculty requires.
- Editing help kept to spelling, typing and formatting, with no substantive rewriting by anyone else.
- Electronic copy prepared as PDF/A or PDF 1.4 or later, within your faculty's file size limit.
- Bibliographic data, upload and consent declaration completed in TISS.
- Hard-bound printed copy with signatures delivered to the dean's office.
- Embargo application submitted if needed, with the two-year expiry date diarised for the extension.
What TU Wien does not publish centrally
No page layout rules. No margins, no typeface, no line spacing, no binding colour. Your faculty's guidelines govern.
No word or page limit. Length is governed by the ECTS credits in your curriculum and by your supervisor's expectations.
No single cover page template. Templates are issued per faculty.
No central plagiarism check. The Leitfaden leaves software use to each faculty, even though Turnitin checking is available through TISS for diploma and master's theses.
No fixed number of printed copies. § 23a requires a bound copy for the library; how many your Studiendekanat wants is a faculty matter.
The short version
Three things cost people time at TU Wien. Not registering the topic and time frame properly, and then discovering that the supervision relationship can be suspended. Formatting to a rule from a forum rather than from the Studiendekanat. And treating the embargo as a five-year decision when it is really a two-year decision with a renewal you have to remember.
Three things protect you. The written time frame in § 22 (7), which cuts both ways and can be extended when circumstances genuinely change. The four-week window to ask for a negative assessment to be reviewed. And TU Wien's own clear statement of how much outside help is allowed, which lets you use support honestly instead of guessing. If you want to know what that kind of support costs before you commit, our pricing page is the place to start.
