Calendars for pre-registration, registration and academic committee meetings can be viewed on the webpage of the School of Doctoral Studies. [+ information]
Pre-registration
Pre-registration can be completed online during the months of July, August and September. It is recommended that candidates pre-register to ensure they will be able to register later. They must choose their doctoral programme and line of research. There is also an option to propose a thesis tutor. Once the academic committee has approved the chosen line of research, it will assign the candidate a thesis tutor. As part of the pre-registration process, all applications will be reviewed to check if the applicants meet the entrance requirements (for example, hold undergraduate and master’s degrees). All the entrance requirements are governed by Royal Decree 99/2011 and can be found on the webpage of the School of Doctoral Studies. During the pre-registration process, and depending on the entrance requirements met, the academic committee may require that some researchers in training complete additional training. [+ information]
Registration
Registration can be completed online during the months of October, November and December. Researchers in training must indicate their chosen line of research and the name of the tutor assigned to them. The registration fee covers academic supervision and all administrative fees. The researchers in training who are certified grant holders or professors of the University of Girona and are eligible for a discount only have to pay the registration processing fees. (In times of crisis these discounts may be discontinued.) [+ information]
Continuance policy standards
Doctoral degrees studies may be completed in one of two ways:
- Full time, in three years. A one-year extension may be requested and, under exceptional circumstances, an additional year granted.
- Part time, in five years. A two-year extension may be requested and, under exceptional circumstances, an additional year granted.
In either case, the year is considered to begin on 31 December of the academic year in which doctoral candidates register in the doctoral programme for the first time, and to end when they submit their doctoral theses. Temporary leaves from the programme, which must be officially requested, are excluded from the calculation. [+ information]
Monitoring and evaluation
First year. In January, students will be asked to accept the clauses of the thesis agreement and the code of good practice found in an application on La Meva UdG. The candidate must indicate the line of research and the thesis tutor, and propose a thesis supervisor, who must meet the UdG criteria of being an active researcher. The proposal must first be accepted by the tutor, then by the supervisor and finally by the academic committee. After this process, students may post their research plan (a model is available on the webpage of the School of Doctoral Studies), which the academic committee will evaluate before accepting it. Doctoral candidates may submit a proposal to have two thesis co-supervisors (in addition to the supervisor), but they must justify the need for co-supervision.
Second and subsequent years. Every year, the academic committee of the of doctoral programme will evaluate, on a pass/fail basis, the research plan and the doctoral candidate activities document (DAD), together with any reports submitted by the doctoral candidate and the thesis supervisor, following the models established by the Steering Committee of the School of Doctoral Studies. The DAD data are taken from the curriculum management program currently in use at the UdG (at present, the GREC). Doctoral students must register with the GREC before introducing their curricular data and the activities they are developing (articles, conferences, courses). They must also fill in an anonymous questionnaire in the second year.
In all cases, DAD approval is required to continue in the programme. If, with due cause, it fails to be approved, the doctoral student must submit a new research plan, which will be evaluated again after a period of six months. If the new plan fails to be approved, the doctoral student will be required to withdraw from the programme and wait at least one academic year before reapplying for admission to any doctoral programme of the University of Girona. [+ information]
Review
Before the doctoral thesis review process begins, doctoral students must have had their research plan approved and have entered their curricular data in the GREC (or the program currently in use). They should also ensure that their thesis follows the format established by the School of Doctoral Studies. If the thesis is presented as a compendium of articles, it must comply with the requirements of the School of Doctoral Studies.
An electronic copy of the thesis must also be presented (a PDF file on a CD). The CD must have the title of the thesis written on it and be signed by the doctoral student and the thesis supervisor or supervisors. Doctoral candidates must also complete the thesis review form to indicate whether or not they wish to opt for an international doctorate and whether or not the thesis presented as a compendium of published articles.
Doctoral candidates must submit all this documentation to the University Registry, from where the thesis and the review request application will be sent to the School of Doctoral Studies. At that point, at least two experts will be requested to submit reports on the thesis.
The review process may take as long as two months, counting from the day after the review request application is submitted. Doctoral students will receive an email message containing the confidential, expert reports, which will indicate any corrections that need to be made to the thesis. If the proposed changes are accepted, they are made to the thesis before the next step. If the proposed changes are not accepted, the thesis supervisor specify the reasons in a report.
Thesis submission
Within six months of the end of the review process, the thesis may be officially submitted. In accordance with article 23 of the regulations, the following documentation must be prepared:
- An application to submit the thesis.
- Two bound and signed paper copies of the thesis, following the formatting criteria established by the School of Doctoral Studies.
- The doctoral candidate’s curriculum vitae.
- A letter or report explaining the suitability of any changes made in accordance with the expert report recommendations.
- A copy on CD of the thesis, duly labelled and signed.
- The report from the thesis supervisor or supervisors.
- If the thesis presented as a compendium of articles, the supervisor(s) must submit a report to indicate the contribution made by the doctoral candidate to each article, the approval and “permission” of all co-authors to use the articles as a thesis and that the articles have been published in journals with the minimum required impact factor.
- If doctoral candidates are opting for an international doctorate, they must also submit the corresponding certificate of stay.
- Informative summary of the main results of the doctoral thesis.
The next phase is public exhibition (15 calendar days), during which the academic committee decides whether or not to authorise the defence and, if so, appoints a board of examiners. This board must be made up of three full members (a president, a secretary and a third member) and two substitutes, all of whom must hold doctoral degrees and have certified research experience. The board that evaluates the doctoral thesis must have A majority of the five board members must be from universities other than the UdG and from research institutions other than the ones to which the supervisor or co-supervisors belong. Once the thesis defence has been approved, five bound copies of the thesis must be submitted to the School of Doctoral Studies, which will be responsible for delivering them to the members of the board.
Thesis defence
The president of the board must inform the School of Doctoral Studies of the date of the thesis defence at least three weeks in advance. The thesis is evaluated on a pass/fail basis. Members may also decide, by secret ballot, to pass the thesis with a cum laude mention. The academic committee of the doctoral programme will grant a cum laude mention to a doctoral thesis if the board members have voted unanimously in favour of it and three of the following four conditions are met:
- The two external reviewers have recommended the thesis be passed with a cum laude mention.
- The author has published or has had accepted for publication at least one article in journals of the first tercile of the Thomson Reuters (formerly ISI) Web of Knowledge, in journals classified as A or B according to CARHUS, ERIH, DICE, Latindex or other similar indexes, or in similar publications that meet the academic committee’s criteria during the preparation of the doctoral thesis.
- All the evaluations of the doctoral thesis during the monitoring process have been positive.
- Less than four years in the case of full-time studies, or less than six years in the case of part-time studies, have passed from the date the student was admitted into the doctoral programme until the date of the thesis defence.
Applying for the doctoral degree certificate
After the thesis defence, successful candidates must apply for the doctoral degree certificate at the School of Doctoral Studies and provide the following documents:
- A photocopy of their national identity document and of the certificate of the master’s or undergraduate degree that allowed them to enter the doctoral programme.
- Form to publish the thesis in TDX (sent by email to sec.edoctorat@udg.edu).
- A duly signed contract between the author of the thesis and the UdG to authorise its publication in TDX. Contrary to what is stated, a 600-word abstract of the thesis is not required.
- A doctoral degree certificate application form to submit to the School of Doctoral Studies.
- The form obtained when the TESEO program is downloaded should be completed with information about the thesis and then printed. In addition, send it by email to sec.edoctorat@udg.edu. [+ information]