These are the terms and procedures you must know and follow to develop your research and training plan, monitor your academic progress, and process applications.
Thesis supervision
Supervisor Allocation
The Academic Commission of the PhD Program (Comisión Académica del Programa de Doctorado - CAPD) will appoint a tutor for the monitoring of the research work of the PhD student at the time of accepting the admission.
The tutor must be a professor assigned by the program with acredited research experience and permanent relationship with the USC, or on temporary leave for being part of research excellence programs. The research and academic staff (PDI) without a permanent relationship may be a tutor during the time of the contractual relationship with the USC.
Thesis Supervisor Allocation
At the time of admission or, if this is not possible, within a maximum of three months of registration, the Academic Committee will assign each doctoral candidate a thesis supervisor or supervisors, and will transfer this information to the software application.
A supervisor may be any Spanish or foreign doctor with accredited resarch experience (art. 25.3.a of the Regulations for Doctoral Studies of the USC) regardless of the university, center or institution in which they provide their services. The thesis supervisor may be the same person designated as tutor.
The co-direction of the thesis may be exercised by any Spanish or foreing doctor who does not have accredited research experience, as long as they meet one of the requirements established in article 26.5 of the USC Doctoral Studies Regulations.
For the supervisor appointed by the Academic Commission to be registered in the application, they need to have been previously listed on the database "Register of Directors" at the USC. If they are not included in this database, the coordinator of the Doctoral Programme may request their inclusion sending the corresponding forms found in the -Thesis supervision- drop-down menu on the Forms and models website to edius [at] usc.es.
Change of Tutor or Supervisor
During the doctoral research work, the Academic Commission of the Doctoral Programme (CAPD) may, with a justified reason, modify the appointed tutor and supervisor or supervisors of the thesis, with or without a request from the person concerned.
The PhD student may request from the Academic Commission of their program the change of tutor or supervisor via their Virtual Secretariat, presenting a reasonable proposal to such commission.
Thesis co-supervision
A thesis may have more than one supervisor when there are academic or interdisciplinary reasons, or in the case of programs developed in collaboration with other institutions/universities.
The maximum number of supervisors of a thesis shall be two. For the appointment of a third supervisor, the following requeriments must be met:
- The Academic Commission of the Doctoral Programme (CAPD) proposal
- The authorization of the EDIUS
- One of them must be the tutor
- The assignment is motivated by the thematic interdisciplinarity of the thesis in which the three supervisors belong to different fields of knowledge; the thesis is developed within the framework of a national or international proyect obtained through a competitive call for proposals in collaboration with another center or national or foreign institutions; the thesis is developed under a cotutelle regime.
The authorization from the EDIUS, after the proposal fronm the CAPD, is required for the assignment of a second director 36 months after the beginning of the studies for full-time students, or 63 months when the dedication is part-time. In the case of mixed dedications, article 20.1 will be applied. This incorporation must be accompanied by a modification of the research and training plan.
This will not be possible if the doctoral student is in an extension period.
To request authorization from the EDIUS, the program must send to edius [at] usc.es the corresponding forms found in the -Thesis supervision - drop-down menu on the Forms and models website.
The student may request the CAPD to assign them a new supervisor. This procedure is not available through the Virtual Secretariat.
The authorized profile is the person who acts as tutor or supervisor of a PhD student and is in charge of transferring all the evaluation or management reports to the University's computer platform.
The authorized profile is designated by the CAPD.
The Documentary Supervision Agreement (CDS) is the document that covers the functions of supervision, tutoring and monitoring of doctoral students. It specifies the conditions for carrying out the thesis, the rights and duties of the doctoral student, including possible intellectual and/or industrial copyrights arising from the research, acceptance of the dispute resolution procedure, as well as the duties and rights of the tutor and thesis supervisor (positions that may be occupied by the same person).
Acceptance of the Documentary Supervision Agreement
Acceptance by:
- The PhD student after registering (in the virtual secretariat).
- The tutor (in the virtual secretariat) after the acceptance of the CDS by the PhD student.
- The thesis supervisor at the time of the assignment by the CAPD. (Non-USC teachers will receive an email to accept the CDS)
- The coordinator, without notification. It will appear in the virtual secretariat as pending issues once the CDS is accepted by the student and the tutor.
Thesis monitoring
The PhD student must register all significant activities completed during the thesis process.
The mentioned activities will be registered via the Student Virtual Secretariat (in the section “PhD student file RD99/2011”) and will be assessed and validated by the tutor or supervisor (authorized profile) and annually by the Academic Commission of the Program (CAPD).
PhD students must keep the original documents which will certify the completion of the activities.
In order to deposit the thesis, the CAPD demands, among other requirements, that all programmed activities must be completed. It is recommended that you make sure the activities are duly registered and marked as completed in the activities document.
The Research and Personal Training Plan is the document that must include the methodology to be used by the doctoral student and the objectives to be achieved, as well as the means and time schedule to achieve them. The personal training section will include a list of the training activities that will be carried out during this doctoral training period, including, in any case, those established as mandatory by the doctoral program.
When?
- Initial research plan: In case of this being the first year of enrolment in the Doctoral Program, within a maximum period of six calendar months from the date of enrolment and always before the end of the academic year. Doctoral students enrolled in the second call must have their plan submitted before July 31.
- Research plan modification: Each PhD student will be able to modify their plan when necessary. In any case, it should always be modified in the event that the thesis to be defended undergoes some variation in relation to the last plan approved by the CAPD.
In case of negative evaluation, which shall be duly motivated, the PhD student must prepare a new Research Plan within the period established by the CAPD, which may not exceed three months from de date of rejection.
How is it processed?
In the Student Virtual Secretariat (in the section “PhD student file RD99/2011”). This can only be done if there is evidence of the allocation of a tutor or supervisor in the application. If they have not yet been assigned, you should contact your doctoral programme. Once you have completed all the sections of the Research and Training Plan, you must submit it to your authorized profile to get a report which will then be approved by the CAPD.
It is recommended to fill in this document as soon as possible as its approval is a requirement to participate in calls for pre-doctoral grants.
The monitoring of the research work of doctoral students will be carried out annually by the Academic Commission of each Doctoral Programme through the assessment of the Activities Document and the development of the Research Plan.
Previously, the tutor or supervisor who appears as the authorized profile must accept (or not) the activities of the student and subsequently generate their report. Once the report has been issued by the authorized profile, the coordinator of the PhD programme will transfer the evaluation of the Academic Commission to the application, so that it will appear in the doctoral student's file as positive or negative.
In case of a negative evaluation, which will be duly motivated by means of a CAPD report, the doctoral student will be reassessed according to the deadline set by the USC, which will never exceed six months from the previous evaluation.
In the event that the negative evaluation is maintained, the CAPD will issue a definitive negative report, duly motivated. Against this definitive evaluation, a reasoned review may be requested before the CAPD within the established deadlines.
If the complaint is rejected, the doctoral student will be definitively wihtdrawn from the Doctoral Programme.
