Currently supportive information systems for higher education and research are responding to specific information needs within institutes, departments and administration. These separated systems are mainly based on information and service portals or e-learning environments and have typically independently grown over the years. Information systems in the field of higher education mostly support undergraduate students as well as graduate students during their studies.

Apart from this there is no real support for special needs doctoral students demand for during their research work. An information system in the field of doctoral research should allow for collaborative work and should support different kinds of processes doctoral students participate in. Our approach is to develop an integrated information system for collaborative research and doctoral education based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).