Supervision and tracking

THESIS SUPERVISION

Regarding thesis supervision, students will be subject to the regulations established in the Royal Decree 99/2011, of 28 January, which regulates official doctoral studies.

The Doctoral Studies Regulations, approved by the Governing Council of the Universitat de València ACGUV 206/2017, of 25 July, modified by ACGUV/2018, of 10 July, establishes with regard to the supervision of theses:

Article 3. The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme

1. The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme is responsible for the programming, coordination and academic and teaching supervision of the activities of the programme.

4. The Academic Committee of the Programme has the following competences:

a) To propose to the Doctoral School the list of possible PhD students for the supervision of doctoral theses, as well as the research lines offered.

b) To propose the admission to the doctoral programme.

c) To assign to each PhD student the supervisor(s) and advisor(s) of the doctoral thesis, as well as to approve their modification in a reasoned manner.

d) To make public the procedures they consider appropriate in order to guarantee the quality of doctoral theses, both in their preparation and in the assessment process, before they are submitted.

e) Annually evaluate the personalised activities document and the PhD student's research plan.

f) For the purpose of awarding the international mention in the Doctoral Degree, to authorise the stay and activities carried out in another State, either in a higher education institution or in a research institution.

g) All other competences necessary for the proper performance of their duties.

Article 4. Doctoral Thesis Advisors

1. Once admitted and enrolled in the doctoral programme, all PhD students shall be assigned, within a period of three months, an advisor by the corresponding Academic Committee, who shall be a doctor with accredited research experience, linked to the unit or school organising the programme.

2. The advisor shall be responsible for ensuring the interaction of the PhD student with the Academic Committee and, in particular:

a) to ensure that the training and research activity of the PhD student is in line with the programme;

b) to guide the student in the choice of courses, seminars or other non-regulated activities aimed at research training.

Article 5. Supervision of Doctoral Theses

1. The Academic Committee responsible for the programme shall assign each PhD student, within a maximum period of three months from enrolment, a supervisor for the doctoral thesis, who may or may not coincide with the person designated as advisor. This assignment may fall on any doctor with duly accredited research experience, regardless of the university, centre or institution in which they provide their services. A doctoral thesis may be co-supervised by a maximum of three doctors.

2. No doctor of the Universitat de València may supervise or co-supervise more than 10 doctoral theses at the same time.

3. The supervisor may resign from the student's supervisory duties by means of a reasoned resignation letter presented to the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme, which, if appropriate, will resolve the request and proceed to the appointment of another supervisor so that the student can continue the doctoral programme.

4. The Academic Committee may modify the appointment of the doctoral thesis supervisor at any time during the completion of the thesis, after hearing the PhD students and the supervisor(s), and provided that there are justified reasons.

5. The general regulations of the Universitat de València that regulate the activity of the teaching staff will establish the equivalence in credits of the supervision of doctoral theses.

Likewise, article 9 establishes that the Universitat de València may reach agreements with foreign universities to develop doctoral theses under a joint supervision system. In this case, PhD students will carry out their thesis work under the control and responsibility of at least one thesis supervisor from each of the universities signing the agreement.

There are currently no official joint supervisions with other universities.

Stays at other centres and international mentions are intrinsically linked and, in general, depend on the type of funding available to the research teams. The availability of students to travel is also an important factor.

In our Doctoral Programme, due to the high employability of computer science and telecommunications graduates, many of our PhD students work, or are not recent graduates, so they have trouble travelling.

Based on data from recent years, approximately one or two students (enrolled full-time) are completing their doctoral thesis with an international mention each year. This represents approximately 25% of the theses defended by full-time students. Part-time students do not undertake a stay and therefore do not obtain international mentions.

www.uv.es/escoladoct/REGLAMENTOS/Reglamento%20de%20Estudios%20de%20Doctorado_cas.pdf

The Universitat de València has a "Doctoral Commitment Document" approved by the Doctoral Subcommittee on 17 October 2011, which defines the respective rights and responsibilities and the reciprocal commitments of the signatory members in order to ensure the achievement of the objectives defined in the Programme during the period of preparation of the doctoral thesis. In summary, this document includes:

- Reciprocal commitments in the establishment of mutual collaboration.

- Responsibilities and commitment of the thesis supervisor: commitment to regularity, motivation of self-reliant initiatives, original and innovative nature of the project and coherent with the research line.

- Responsibilities and commitment of the PhD student: To report the supervisor regularly on the progress of the project and its results, and commitment to follow any observations made by the supervisor.

- Confidentiality with the data and information that may be provided and commitment to use the information for the corresponding purposes, Intellectual Property Regime, recognising the PhD student the intellectual or industrial property rights that correspond to them in accordance with the current legislation.

- Conflict resolution, in which the Doctoral Programme Coordinator must act as mediator.

For the purposes of the supervision of the doctoral thesis, Article 1 of the Regulations for the Evaluation and Submission of Theses of the Universitat de València establishes that once the thesis has been completed, a list of 6 experts, proposed by the thesis supervisor, who may be part of the thesis examining board, must be submitted, in which the research experience of the proposed members must be specified as established by the doctoral subcommittees of the different areas. This proposal must comply with the requirements established by the current legislation on gender equality.

The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme will collect the document of evaluation of the PhD student's personalised activities, the reports of the proposed experts and will resolve the application within a maximum period of one month, starting from the day after its submission at the general registry of the Universitat de València.

Furthermore, the Department of Computer Science establishes further recommendations for the assignment of advisors and supervisors. Thesis advisors and supervisors will be assigned taking into account at least the following criteria:

(1) Each PhD student will be assigned the advisor proposed by the student themselves, provided that the proposal is approved by the researcher.

(2) Each researcher will be assigned a maximum of two PhD students per year.

(3) If possible, the advisor and supervisor will be the same, being different when the thesis supervisor is a researcher not belonging to the UVEG, since the advisor must always be from the UVEG.

(4) In the case of a different advisor and supervisor, the advisor, with the consent of the supervisor, may act as co-supervisor.

List of activities planned to promote the supervision of doctoral theses and the existence of a good practices guide for their supervision:

In order to encourage and guarantee the proper involvement of advisors and supervisors, the work of supervising PhD students and theses will be recognised with ECTS credits and will form part of their teaching schedule as long as they are carried out in accordance with the good practices guide approved by the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme, which can be checked on the website of this programme at http://www.uv.es/infomath.

The Universitat de València proposes each academic year the recognition of credits for the supervision or co-supervision of doctoral theses. For the academic year 2013/2014, the incentive for the supervision and reading of a doctoral thesis is 3 ECTS credits of teaching hours (these 3 ECTS are distributed among the supervisors if there is more than one).

In addition to the incentive of credit recognition, the incorporation of junior doctors in the supervision of doctoral theses should be encouraged. In those cases where the subject matter of the thesis allows it, a junior researcher will be considered as co-supervisor of the thesis alongside an experienced supervisor. This encourages the research careers of PhDs who may be less experienced in supervising theses, but who have amply proven their ability.

Each academic year, the Academic Committee will schedule a scientific briefing mainly aimed at the programme's lecturers, but open to PhDs from related programmes, as well as to future PhDs. This briefing will present the data and results of the programme (theses read, students enrolled, research lines, productivity, etc.) and the advantages of belonging to the Doctoral Programme and supervising theses within it. We will try to invite a leading doctor from other programmes we are working with, so that they can explain their line of research, their collaboration with the Doctoral Programme and their experience while supervising doctoral theses.

List of activities planned to encourage joint supervision in academically justified cases (co-supervision of theses by an experienced supervisor and a junior supervisor, co-supervision of interdisciplinary, collaborative, international theses, etc.) and the presence of international experts in the monitoring committees, preliminary reports and thesis examining boards:

One of the most outstanding features of the programme is its interdisciplinary nature, as demonstrated by the composition of the institutions and research groups that make it up. Collaboration between them and with other institutions is an notable feature of the proposal. In section 6.1 of the proposal you can find the list of lecturers and institutions that have collaborated in previous programmes in the supervision of theses, co-supervised some of them and participated in the examining boards. These international experts will continue to carry out these tasks within the programme and it is expected to be will be an increase in their number.

In addition to this, from the various collaborations in national projects with other universities, several of the lecturers associated with the programme have also participated and participate in various initiatives and R+D+i projects at European level, for instance, International Masters in collaboration with other universities (Master’s Degree in Advanced Science of Modern Communications), belonging to European networks of excellence such as INTUITION, etc. These links will be used for the supervision of joint theses on topics related to the shared research projects.

Another reason for encouraging collaborations in the development of theses is based on the reservation of part of the budget for activities with foreign lecturers who come to teach or to carry out short stays related to the subject of the Doctoral Programme. This brings PhD students and lecturers closer to these international specialists and opens up the possibility of more stable collaborations at the level of co-supervision or revision of thesis projects.

MONITORING OF THE PHD STUDENT

The Universitat de València will establish the necessary electronic procedure for monitoring the activities document of each PhD student.

For monitoring the PhD student's activities and recording their data, a document of their activities will be established, which will be individualised for each PhD student, and whose format, characteristics and medium will be in accordance with the regulations of the Universitat de València and registered at the Third Cycle Unit of the Postgraduate Centre.

The PhD Student Activities Document will be opened with the supervision commitment signed between the PhD student and the University. The PhD student will have access to the Activities Document to record and update all the activities carried out throughout the Programme. Their records will be authorised and approved, after completion, by the advisor and the thesis supervisor.

The PhD Student Activities Document will include the annual reports made by the advisor and thesis supervisor, as well as the annual evaluations made by the Academic Committee.

The PhD Student Activities Document will be accessible, for reference and recording purposes, by the PhD student, their advisor, thesis supervisor, the Academic Committee, the academic body responsible for the Doctoral Programme and the Doctoral Committee.

The advisor and/or supervisor, in accordance with the guidelines that the Academic Committee may establish in this respect, will indicate the minimum number of activities to be carried out by the PhD student and will be responsible for authorising and verifying these activities and for keeping the record up to date, together with the appropriate reports on the PhD student's degree of achievement and work.

The possible activities will be structured in the following sections:

1. Seminars and ongoing training courses, proposed by the Doctoral Programme itself.

2. Research courses and seminars offered by research lines or groups participating in the Doctoral Programme.

3. Practical courses and advanced research techniques taught by specialists at the UVEG.

4. Seminars organised by other doctoral programmes.

5. Specialised courses/seminars of recognised standing given by other universities or research institutes.

6. Conferences, workshops and national and international congresses, both attendance and presentation of communications or papers.

7. Joint working sessions with PhD students of the programme: discussion and feedback sessions with the Academic Committee, collective presentation of thesis progress, etc.

8. Stays in other national or foreign research groups.

9. Others that the Academic Committee may establish, depending on the characteristics of each programme and the relevance of these activities in the scientific field of their research lines.

The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme, in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations of Doctoral Studies of the Universitat de València, is formed by five PhDs (or more if the programme requires it) and will be appointed by the Postgraduate Studies Committee at the proposal of the department, research institute or faculty or school responsible for the Doctoral Programme in accordance with the regulations of the Universitat de València. The programme coordinator will be one of the members of this committee and must accredit having supervised at least two doctoral theses and be in possession of two six-year research periods (or comparable merits if these criteria are not applicable).

The Doctoral Studies Regulations, approved by the Governing Council of the Universitat de València ACGUV 206/2017, of 25 July, modified by ACGUV/2018, of 10 July, establishes the following procedure in the different articles specified:

Article 4. Doctoral Thesis Advisors

Article 5. Supervision of Doctoral Theses

Article 6. Doctoral Commitment Document

After formalising the first enrolment, the PhD student, the University, the advisor and, if applicable, the supervisor must jointly sign the doctoral commitment, which is related, among other issues, to the procedure for resolving any conflicts that may arise, to aspects relating to intellectual or industrial property and, in general, to the functions of supervision of the PhD student’s research activity.

Article 7. PhD students' Activities Document and Research Plan

1. Once enrolled for the first time, a personalised activity document shall be drawn up for each doctoral student, which must record all the activities of interest for the development of the PhD student, as well as the development of the doctoral thesis, for review by the advisor and the thesis supervisor and evaluation by the Academic Committee of the corresponding Doctoral Programme.

2. Before the end of the first year, the PhD student must draw up a research plan, approved by the advisor and the supervisor. This plan must include the methodology, objectives, means and time schedule of the doctoral thesis, as well as a favourable report from the Universitat de València's Ethics Committee in Experimental Research, in the cases indicated.

This plan may be improved throughout the duration of the Doctoral Programme and must be approved by the advisor and the supervisor.

3. Research plans involving experimentation on humans or human biological samples, animal experimentation and the use of pathogenic biological agents or genetically modified organisms will be subject to evaluation by the Ethics Committee.

4. Annually, the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme will evaluate the research plan and the activities document together with the reports issued by the advisor and the supervisor. A positive evaluation will be a requirement to continue in the programme. In the event of a negative evaluation, which must be reasoned, the PhD student must be re-evaluated within six months, for which a new research plan must be drawn up.

If there is a second negative evaluation, the PhD student will be definitively withdrawn from the programme. The applicant may lodge an appeal against these resolutions, which do not exhaust administrative procedures, which shall be resolved by the Principal or their delegate following a report from the Doctoral School.

5. A favourable report on this personalised activities document and the research plan by the Academic Committee will be required for enrolment in subsequent years.

6. These documents must be submitted at the Doctoral School.

www.uv.es/escoladoct/REGLAMENTOS/Reglamento%20de%20Estudios%20de%20Doctorado_cas.pdf

Supervision and monitoring of PhD students