Doctoral Charter, Training and Annual Evaluation. Research plan and DAD

1. DOCUMENTARY COMMITMENT OF SUPERVISION. DOCTORAL CHARTER.

Upon admission, the DP’s Academic Committee will have assigned each doctoral student a supervisor and a tutor. Their functions are detailed and reflected in the Doctoral Charter to be signed by the supervisor, tutor, and student once enrollment is complete. This document must be submitted as soon as possible and no later than ONE MONTH after the assignment of the supervisor.

PROCEDURE FOR SUBMITTING THE DOCTORAL CHARTER*.

• Log in to the electronic registry in the "solicit@" tab of the electronic registry (Help Manual).
• Start a new application, selecting the Start New Application option in the Options menu.
• Within the category "Undergraduate, Master's, Doctoral Students", select "Doctoral Charter Submission" in the catalog of active procedures offered.
• Review the letter.
• Click Submit.
• Accept "I declare that all the information provided is true and confirm my willingness to submit".
• Sign and submit.
• You will receive a message when the application is accepted.

*NOTE: For the 2021/22 academic year, if the application has already been processed on paper, it can be reprocessed via this procedure so to have all the charters in the same system. However, given the dates on which this new system is being implemented, if it cannot be processed with this new procedure, the Doctoral Charter must be processed before June 1, following the standard procedure, and using the template available on the UZDS website in the Regulations and Procedures tab. Once signed, it will be filed in the student's record (DAD).

2. TRAINING ACTIVITIES

a) Transversal

The UZDS organizes transversal training for its doctoral students. The available voluntary activities may change throughout the year and cover aspects such as communication (oral and written); information management to facilitate searching, processing, and storage of information; skills to guide the professional career and future social performance; or important issues regarding the research-society interaction, with the aim to promote reflection on ethics, deontology or science policy.

Another important training block covers specific demands in instrumental or technical aspects.

The training offer is complemented with on-line activities for all G9 doctoral students, teaching and research training activities organized by the Center for Education Sciences Innovation, Training, and Research and with those carried out within the framework of inter-university and international Doctoral Conferences.

All the available programs for each academic year are available here.

b) Specific

Specific training activities are organized by each DP and publicized through their own websites.

The UZDS has an annual grant program for these programs in order to increase dynamism and better adjustment to the needs and interests of its doctoral students. Results will be published on the Doctoral School's website and the selected activities will be shared.

3. EVALUATION OF THE TRAINING PROCESS. RESEARCH PLAN, FOLLOW-UP REPORT AND DOCTORAL STUDENT'S ACTIVITIES DOCUMENT (DAD) – SIGMA

See point 6: UZDS statement of May 23, 2018, on the requirements for access, admission, study mode and permanence in doctoral studies at the UZ regulated by R.D. 99/2011.

The annual evaluation of the doctoral student is carried out by the DP’s Academic Committee through the monitoring of the training process by means of the research plan, the monitoring reports, and the Doctoral Student Activity Document (DAD), together with the reports issued by the tutor and the supervisor.

A positive evaluation will be a prerequisite for continuing in the program. In the event of a negative evaluation, which will be duly motivated, the doctoral student must be re-evaluated within six months, for which a new research plan must be prepared. In the event of a second negative evaluation, the doctoral student will be definitively withdrawn from the program. For the doctoral thesis to be admitted for final processing, the student must have a positive evaluation of the corresponding academic year. If necessary, the Academic Committee will carry out an evaluation at the time of considering the thesis for processing.

a) Research plan (first year)

The doctoral student must present the research plan to the program’s Academic Committee before the end of the first year of enrollment (deadline is indicated in the academic calendar) following the existing template for this purpose.

It must include the title of the thesis, introduction, and justification of the subject of study, working hypothesis, methodology and the expected objectives, as well as the means and time schedule to achieve them.

It must be endorsed by the supervisor and the tutor, who will present a report following the existing template for this purpose.

b) Research plan follow-up reports (second and subsequent years)

The research plan will be subsequently updated by means of supervisor-endorsed follow-up reports, which will be submitted to the Academic Committee yearly within the deadlines established in the academic calendar. This includes the year of thesis defense.

Likewise, the monitoring reports must inform of the incidents and changes in the plan that have taken place for assessment by the program’s Academic Committee.

IMPORTANT: For students on a pre-doctoral contract, any change in the title of the thesis, supervisors, etc. requires specific approval by the funding agency, whose processing will be carried out by the Research Management Service of the UZ (SGI).

c) Doctoral Student Activity Document (DAD) (annually)

The DAD is a record of all the activities –stays, courses, publications, attendance to congresses or others– of interest for the doctoral student’s development and that he/she must complete from enrollment until the thesis submission.

The activities that the doctoral student may carry out during the period of leave cannot be considered part of his or her training, nor can they be included in the DAD.

INTRODUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE DOCUMENTATION THROUGH "DOCTORAL MANAGEMENT" – SIGMA APPLICATION

The submission of the research and follow-up plans, as well as the identification and registration of the activities included in the DAD is carried out through the "Doctoral Management" computer section in the SIGMA application, which is accessed with the PIN and administrative password.

Likewise, the supervisor/s and tutor will enter their reports in the SIGMA application once the student has uploaded the research plan or follow-up report.

Also, the activities included in the DAD will have to be validated by the supervisor/tutor. Students will know that their supervisor has validated an activity if its status in the SIGMA application changes from "proposed" to “complete”. This change can only be made by the supervisor, and indicates that the activity has been accepted, completed, and documented with the corresponding proof.

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