MONITORING

When it comes to the thesis monitoring, students will be subject to the Royal Decree regulation 99/2011, 28 January, which regulates the official doctoral teachings.

The Regulation of Doctoral Studies, approved by the Government Council of the Universitat de València ACGUV 206/2017, 25 July, modified by ACGUV/2018, 10 July, regarding the thesis supervision stablishes:

Article 3. Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme:

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

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

a) Suggesting in the Doctoral School the relation of possible doctors for doctoral thesis tutoring and supervision, as well as the offered lines of research.

b) Suggesting the admission in the doctoral programme.

c) Allocating to each doctoral student the doctoral thesis supervisor(s) and the tutor(s) of the doctoral thesis, as well as approving its modification in a reasoned manner.

d) Making public the required proceedings so as to ensure the quality of doctoral thesis in both, their elaboration and the assessment process, before its deposit.

e) Assessing every year the personalized document of activities and the doctoral student's research plan.

f) For the purpose of awarding the international mention in the doctoral degree, authorising the stay and activities carried out in another State, either in a higher education institution or in a research institution.

g) All of those competences needed for the correct development of their functions.

Article 4. Tutors of doctoral theses

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

2. It is the tutor’s responsibility to ensure the interaction of the doctoral student with the Academic Committee and, specially:

a) taking responsibility on the suitability of the doctoral student's training and research activity in accordance with the programme;

g) guiding the student in the choice of courses, seminars and other non-formal activities addressed to training research.

Article 5. Direction of doctoral theses.

1. The Academic Committee responsible of the programme will appoint to each doctoral student, within a maximum period of three months since their enrolment, one director of doctoral thesis who may coincide or not with the tutor. This director can be any doctor with properly accredited researching experience independent from the university, centre or institute where he/she develops his/her work. A doctoral thesis can be co-supervised by a maximum of three doctors

2. No doctor from the Universitat de València may supervise or co-supervise over 10 theses simultaneously.

3. The supervisor/director may waive the direction, writing the opinion expressed by the Doctoral Programme Academic Committee that meet the request and shall appoint another supervisor to continue in the doctoral programme.

4. For justified reasons, the Academic Committee may amend, hearing the doctoral student and directors, the appointment of the director of doctoral thesis at any time of the completion of the thesis.

5. University regulations involving the activities of the research staff will establish the credit equivalence of mentoring and supervision of doctoral theses.

Likewise, the Article 9 states that “the Universitat de València may formalise agreements with foreign universities to develop doctoral theses in co-supervision regime. In this case, the doctoral students will carry out their thesis work under the control and responsibility of at least one thesis supervisor from each of the universities signatories of the agreement Universities”.

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

The Doctoral Programme Academic Committee, responsible for assigning a tutor and thesis supervisor to the doctoral student, will ensure the existence of good practice in such supervision and direction activities.

The Medicine Doctoral Programme Academic Committee, in accordance with the Regulation for Doctoral Studies, approved by the Government Council of the Universitat de València ACGUV 206/2017, on 25 July, amended by the Government Council on 10 July 2018, ACGUV 158/2018, is the responsible for the programming, coordination and academic and teaching supervision of programme activities.

It is formed by seven doctors, one of them will be the secretary, and by a member of the administration and service staff, assigned by the Doctoral School.

The coordinator of the doctoral programme will be one of the members of the academic commission. This coordinator must be an important researcher and has to be supported by the previous direction of a minimum of two doctoral theses and the justification of two renowned research activity periods.

The Commission will improve the direction of doctoral theses by the lecturers/researchers of research structures that take part in the programme, taking into account the preferences expressed by students on the research lines in which their thesis could be developed, the equality of opportunities between researchers and their availability.

In order to achieve this, the Medicine Doctoral Programme Academic Committee will organise activities such as:

· Organising specific conferences on some research field covered by the groups taking part in the doctoral programme, addressed to degree students with the aim of both, encourage them in their studies and give them the option of becoming doctoral thesis students in the teams taking part in the Doctoral Programme.

· Encouraging the introduction of young researchers in the direction of doctoral theses through co-directions with senior researchers. This way, young researchers in the Faculty could be introduced in the doctoral theses monitoring field, and therefore, new lines of research could be opened.

· Encouraging summer stays of degree students in research groups.

· Encouraging the participation of degree and master’s degree students in scientific activities of research groups, in the framework of undergraduate degree final projects or master’s degree final project through collaboration grants of the Ministry of Education, or the initiation to research of the Universidad de València and CSIC own programme.

· Supporting the obtaining of external resources for doctoral funding, through requests in competitive calls (FPI, FPU, Generalitat Valenciana, CSIC, Universitat de València, European contracts”).

· Encouraging doing doctoral stays in other national and international prestigious centres.

· Encouraging and creating a pleasant atmosphere of work and the integration of the doctoral student in both, the research group and the work centre.

· Encouraging the co-direction of doctoral theses with the aim of offer to young researchers the possibility of being started in the field of directing doctoral thesis. This way, new lines of research will be opened.

Likewise, the Committee will enable multiple supervision in those cases academically justified such as thesis co-direction by an experienced and novel director, or the theses monitoring on interdisciplinary research lines.

Collaboration with other universities and international research centres in the doctoral studies field will be promoted. This will support the thesis co-direction by external experts of renowned prestige.

On the other hand, the presence of international experts in the monitoring commissions, previous reports and thesis court composition.

This presence is guaranteed by the UV current regulation on requirements on the defence and presentation of doctoral thesis which have to issue favourable reports previous to the thesis lecture.

In addition, the existent regulation on thesis court composition ensures the participation of external members of the Universitat de València.

The Academic Committee will authorise the stay and the activities developed in an international higher education institution or in an international research centre.

It will also indicate whether such activities are considered appropriate to grant the International Certification for Doctoral degrees. To do this, the doctoral students should submit their applications to the Academic Committee with the approval of the thesis director and supervisor with at least fifteen days before the beginning of the stay.

When it comes to the prediction of doctoral stays in other national and international centres, research groups of the medicine doctoral programme, encourage and manage pre-doctoral stays in Research Centres with collaboration. For this reason, it is expected that 10% of students in the Medicine Programme will do their stays in other national and international centres and a 5% of thesis with international mention.

It is expected a 5% of part-time students. Stays will be encouraged to be done on a co-tutelle modality.

Students who stay abroad are expected to do their doctoral thesis with international mention.

In order to promote stays, those students on the last year who have not yet carried out a stay, a plan to request external resources will be asked to the student. The document with the mobility plan will be attached to the research plan and the activity document so that it can be approved by the Academic Committee. In this way, it is expected to encourage staying abroad for a period of time and benefit the competition for available economical resources. Exceptionally, in case the students are not planning on asking for external resources for mobility, they will have to include a motivation attached to the research plan and the activities document so that they can be assessed by the Academic Committee.

The Medicine Doctoral Programme Academic Committee, in charge of assigning the Tutor and Director of Doctoral Theses, will ensure the existence of “good practices” in those supervision and direction tasks.

The Academic Committee, taking into consideration the doctoral student and tutor’s opinion, will be able to change the tutor at any time during the period of the doctoral programme, provided there are justified reasons for the benefit of the thesis development. The tutor change could be requested by written by the doctoral student, or agreed directly by the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme.

The Universitat de València has a “Doctoral Commitment Document” approved by the Doctoral Sub-commission on 17 October 2011, in which rights and respective commitments and mutual obligations of members are defined. This has the aim to ensure the achievement of objectives defined in the Programme during the period for doing the doctoral thesis, and the signatory of the document of doctoral commitment. In summary, in this document they are stablished:

- Mutual commitments in the establishment of a mutual collaboration.

- Obligations and commitment of the Thesis director are defined: regulatory commitment, motivation of autonomous initiative, original and innovative nature of the project, as well as coherent with the Line of research.

- Obligations and commitment of the Doctoral student: Informing the director regularly on the work evolution, its results and commitment to follow the instructions made by the director.

- Confidentiality with provided data and information and commitment for using that information on the corresponding purposes, Intellectual Property Regime, recognising the corresponding copyright according with the current law to the doctoral student.

- Conflict resolution, in which the Coordinator of the Doctoral Programme should act as a mediator.

- Document validity, from its signature to the Thesis lecture, expecting other causes for termination.

The current Programme, presented to assessment, includes the written document, as well as it will encourage the elaboration of a Guide of this type on behalf of the Academic Community.

MONITORING PHD STUDENTS

The Doctoral Studies Regulation approved by the Government Council of the UV ACGUV 206/2017, on 25 July, amended by the ACGUV/2018, on 10 July establishes the following procedure in the different articles specified hereafter:

Article 4. Tutors of doctoral theses

1. Once accepted and enrolled in the doctoral programme, the Academic Committee will appoint each doctoral student a tutor within three months. It has to be a doctor with accredited researching experience, attached to the unit or School which organizes the programme.

Article 5. Direction of doctoral theses.

1. The Academic Committee responsible of the programme will appoint to each doctoral student, within a maximum period of three months since their enrolment, one director of doctoral thesis who may coincide or not with the tutor.

Article 6. Doctoral commitment document

After formalising the first year enrolment, the doctoral student, the University, the tutor, and if applicable the director, should jointly subscribe the doctoral commitment document, related to, among other questions, procedures of conflict solving which can be applied to aspects concerning copyright or industrial property and, in general, to the monitoring functions of the research activity of the doctoral student.

Article 7. Activities document and research plan of doctoral students

1. Once the first enrolment is done, a personalised activities document will be issued for each doctoral student, where all the activities of interest for the development of the doctoral student will be recorded, as well as the development of the thesis, under the purpose of being reviewed by the thesis supervisor and director, and being assessed by the appropriate Academic Committee of the doctoral programme.

2. Before the end of the first year the doctoral student will make a research plan supported by the supervisor and the director. This plan has to include the methodology and goals, the mediums and the time planning as well as a positive report by the Ethics Committee in Experimental Research of the Universitat de València if applicable.

This plan can be improved throughout their stay in the doctoral programme and must be supported by the supervisor and the director.

3. The Ethics Committee will assess research plans which include experimentation with humans or biological human samples, experimentation with animals, the use of biological pathogenic agents or genetically-modified organisms.

4. The Programme Academic Committee yearly assesses the research plan and the activities document together with the reports issued by the supervisor and the director. The positive evaluation will be a requirement to be able to continue in the programme. In the event of a negative evaluation, which must be supported, the doctoral students must be assessed again within six months. In order to do so they must develop a new research plan.

If there is a second negative evaluation, the doctoral student will be permanently withdrawn of the programme. Against these resolutions, which do not exhaust the administrative procedures, the applicant may lodge an appeal, which will solve a previous report from the Doctoral School by the principal or by his/her delegate.

5. For the enrolment of successive years a favourable report by the Academic Committee on the personal activities document and the research plan is necessary.

6. These documents will have to be registered and enrolled in the Doctoral School.

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