What does a registration of a PhD at the office of the dean mean? I am interested in both the legal and practical aspects. Of course, there are doctorial guidelines for each university that determine this, but they include little information about what it means in practice.
I know that it is a necessary step to later hand in a dissertation. Also, part of it is that the supervisor agrees to the supervision in some 'contract' that becomes valid once the dean signs it. Moreover, only if you are accepted you are able to matriculate at the university.
What more consequences are there? What obligations come with it? What 'rights' do I get? If I decide to stop this dissertation, is this counted as failed attempt or could I register for another PhD afterwards?
I would expect that there is a good part that is the same for all universities, while details are different. Is this correct? How large is the variance? (Take for example the topic of stopping the dissertation: What is the rough distribution of universities where one could register a new one or not?)
In case it makes any difference, I would be interested in the field of natural sciences.