The academic committees of the doctoral programmes

The academic committees are linked to each doctoral programme and are responsible for defining, updating and coordinating them and ensuring their quality. They are also responsible for fostering the progress of research and education and of authorising the deposit of doctoral theses by students on the doctoral programme.

Academic committee decisions

Functions

The functions of the academic committees of the doctoral programmes are the following:

To organise, coordinate, define and update the doctoral programme.
To draw up the regulations on organisation and functions and amend them as appropriate.
To organise, design and coordinate the doctoral programme's cross-disciplinary and research activities.
To promote the quality of the programme and establish appropriate mechanisms for monitoring and improvement.
To participate in the doctoral programme's verification, monitoring and accreditation processes and promote these processes internally.
To draw up the doctoral programme's monitoring and accreditation reports.
To establish requirements and additional criteria for selecting and admitting applicants to the doctoral programme and approve their admission.
To assign a thesis tutor to doctoral students who have been admitted to the doctoral programme.
To assign a thesis supervisor to doctoral students within a maximum of six months from enrolment. The thesis supervisor may or may not be the same person as the thesis tutor.
To authorise the co-supervision of a doctoral thesis in response to such requests from doctoral students and thesis supervisors.
To change the thesis supervisor assigned to a doctoral student in response to such requests from doctoral students and thesis supervisors.
To arbitrate and guarantee the right to intellectual property of the doctoral student and the thesis supervisor in the case of conflict or a change in the supervision of the thesis.
To authorise doctoral students to change doctoral programme should they request it.
To authorise doctoral students to write their theses on a part-time basis should they request it, having received the thesis supervisor's approval.
To authorise a one- or two-year extension of the deadline for defending a thesis should a doctoral student request it, having received the thesis supervisor's approval.
To authorise doctoral students to withdraw temporarily, for a maximum period of one year, which can be extended another year, should they request it, having received the thesis supervisor's approval.
To ensure that the activity report in which the activities that are relevant to the educational development of the student is reviewed and assessed by the tutor and the supervisor every year.
To assess the research plan and doctoral student activity report, which includes the reports of the supervisor and tutor, every year.
To propose the signing of co-tutoring agreements.
To choose, where appropriate, the external experts who report on the quality of the thesis.
To authorise or reject the registration and defence of doctoral theses.
To establish the criteria for the submission of article-based theses and authorise the submissions.
To propose the examination committees for doctoral theses and appoint, from among the committees' members, the president and the secretary.
To assess and decide whether the participation in the examination committee of a member who is the co-author of publications stemming from the doctoral thesis is justified.
To arbitrate conflicts between students and/or thesis supervisors.
To approve the regulations governing the internal operation of the academic committee of the doctoral programme.
To fulfil any other function that current legislation, doctoral regulations or the Doctoral School directors assign or delegate to them.

Composition

The academic committees of the doctoral programmes are composed of the following:

The coordinator of the doctoral programme.
At least two professors of the Doctoral School who belong to the promoting unit.
A representative of the doctoral students enrolled in a doctoral programme, if the doctoral regulations foresee this possibility.
Researchers with doctoral degrees from public research bodies and other national or international R&D institutions.
In the case of doctoral programmes with more than one promoting unit or interuniversity programmes, there must be teaching and research staff members representing them, in accordance with what is established in the collaboration agreement that has been signed.
Each academic committee must have a person who acts as secretary. This person must be a one of the doctoral degree holders.

Consult the composition of the academic committee of each doctoral programme in the section General information / Organising the file.