External reports and authorisation for the deposit of the thesis

All theses submitted from the 2024-2025 academic year onwards must be accompanied by a minimum of two reports issued by external doctoral experts in the field, who may propose areas for improvement.

Requirements for external expert informants

The informants must be external to the University of Zaragoza and to the universities involved in the agreement in the case of interuniversity programmes and theses under a co-tutelle regime. In the event that the thesis is eligible for Mención Internacional en el título de Doctor o Doctora, los referidos informes deberán ser emitidos por personas que pertenezcan a instituciones de educación superior o institutos de investigación no españoles distintos. In any case, research must be one of the main activities of the institution and it will be the academic committee of the programme that must justify this condition to the permanent committee of the management committee of the Doctoral School, for which it may request as many reports as it deems appropriate. These people may not be the same as the researchers who received the doctoral candidate and carried out tutoring or thesis supervision tasks at the host organisation during the stay undertaken to obtain the international mention.
The doctoral candidate must not appear as a co-author in publications directly related to the subject of the thesis or closely related to the subject of the thesis provided for each researcher who intends to do so.
The authors of the reports cannot be the same as the co-authors of the publications derived from the thesis.
The informants may form part of the panel that evaluates the thesis.

Once the doctoral candidate has pre-submitted their thesis, the thesis supervisors may send it, together with their final report, the Academic Committee of the programme a list of up to five researchers who can issue external reports on the thesis in which they can propose aspects for improvement.

Once the thesis has been accepted for processing, the Academic Committee of the corresponding Doctoral Programme must send to EDUZ, together with the rest of the documentation, a List of external informants for the evaluation of doctoral theses. The persons proposed by the Academic Committee may or may not coincide with those proposed by the thesis directors.

Once the documentation has been received by the Doctoral School, it will extend the deadline for submission in the SIGMA application to five months. The School will contact the first two researchers on the list, following the order indicated. The informants will have a maximum period of 30 calendar days from the time they agree to collaborate on the report to issue the requested report.

The reports will conform to the standard form provided for this purpose, in which one of the four possible responses must be indicated:

(a) The defence of the doctoral thesis is recommended, without changes.
(b) The defence of the doctoral thesis is recommended, with minor changes (with details of the recommended changes).

(d) The defence of the doctoral thesis is not recommended, with reasons given.

Once the two mandatory reports have been received by the Doctoral School, they will be sent to the doctoral student, the supervisors and the Academic Committee, so that the latter can proceed with their evaluation.

The reports are not binding. The Academic Committee of the corresponding doctoral programme will decide whether to authorise the deposit of the thesis based on the reports received and any corrections made by the doctoral candidate as a result of these reports. Therefore:

If the reports are type a, the Academic Committee can authorise the deposit of the thesis, notifying the doctoral candidate by email using the Her@ldo application. In this case, the deposit procedures are continued with the originally pre-deposited report.

If the reports are type b, c or d, the Academic Committee will give instructions to the doctoral student via email using the Her@aldo application, regarding the changes to be made to the thesis. The doctoral student, within a maximum period of two months, must submit, by electronic registration, the corrected thesis and a document responding to the external reports and detailing the changes made to the thesis. Once this documentation has been received, the Academic Committee will validate the changes and authorise, if appropriate, the deposit of the modified version of the doctoral thesis.

In any case, authorisation for the thesis to be submitted must be granted within five months from the date of pre-submission.

In the event that the Academic Committee does not authorise the thesis to be submitted, it must issue a reasoned decision. The doctoral candidate may present arguments to the Doctoral Committee within a period of seven academic days. The Doctoral Committee will issue a reasoned decision within the following seven academic days. The doctoral candidate may make a new pre-submission if they have not yet reached the deadline for the original submission.

Once the thesis deposit has been authorised or denied by the Academic Committee, the programme's administrative office will notify the doctoral candidate and the thesis supervisors by email using the Her@ldo application and will send the following documentation to the Doctoral School by internal communication:

Authorisation or refusal form for the deposit of the thesis, and, as appropriate, the following documentation:
- Corrected version of the thesis.
- Proof of submission by electronic registration of the corrected version of the thesis.
- Document presented by the doctoral student responding to the external reports and detailing the changes made to the thesis.
- New reports requested by the Academic Committee from the informants.
Proposal for a panel according to the form Proposal and designation of the doctoral thesis panel-authorisation to defend. [In the event that researchers are proposed who have not had at least one period of research activity recognised by the CNEAI, ACPUA or equivalent, or who have not previously had their research experience recognised by the Doctoral Commission, the administrative office of the doctoral programme will inform them that they must submit the corresponding application].
- Where appropriate, confidentiality agreements for the persons proposed as members of the panel (except for those who have acted as external informants), following the model MOD-CP-2.
- Application for authorisation to defend the thesis by videoconference, where appropriate. This form may be submitted at a later date, before the announcement of the defence ceremony. In cases of force majeure, the application may be submitted at a later date, but always before the defence of the thesis is held.

Queries: tesis@unizar.es | informestesis@unizar.es

Frequently asked questions Forms