Monitoring, evaluation, submission & defense

INDEX

  1. Monitoring and evaluation:

    • Documentary Commitment of Supervision

    • Research Plan

    • Annual Report

    • Activities Document

  2. Special procedure for Tutelage recognition

  3. Monitoring of the Thesis evolution by the Tutor/Director

  4. Doctoral thesis writing style

  5. Thesis submission

  6. PhD Diploma equivalence

  7. Extraordinary procedure for submitting the Thesis when there are disagreements between the student and the Director

 


Generic information for all the students of the PhD Programme:

· A manual with the specific rules & guidelines from the PhD in Molecular Biosciences can be downloaded from here.

· Generic evaluation dates & rules can be checked at this UAM's website link.

Specific information for the students carrying out their Phd through the Department of Molecular Biology

· A specific calendar & specific rules from the Department in Molecular Biology can be downloaded from here.


 

1. Monitoring and evaluation

Once an applicant has been admitted and completes the enrolment in the PhD Programme, then he becomes an official student of the UAM and must manage by himself the following aspects with the help of the SIGMA website ("Tercer Ciclo SIGMA") located here, so they can be evaluated by the student's Tutor, the Thesis Director, and the Academic Committee:

  • Elaboration and submission of the Documentary Commitment of Supervision ("Compromiso Documental"), after the Thesis Director has been officially asigned.
  • Elaboration and submission of the Research Plan ("Plan de investigación"), during the first six months after the enrolment.
  • Elaboration and submission of the Annual Report, at each annual evaluation.
  • Management of the Activities Document from the beginning of the Thesis -and throughout it-, at each annual evaluation.

PhD students must adopt an ACTIVE role regarding these documents and are supposed to be aware by themselves of all the procedures, documentation, deadlines etc. Below you can find an explanation of each aspect mentioned above:

· Documentary Commitment of Supervision

This document informs about the supervisory functions for the PhD student, and must be signed by himself, his Tutor, the Thesis Director, and the Vice-Rector of Postgraduate Studies. The procedure to get all the signatures is as follows: after the enrolment the Academic Committee will officially asign a Thesis Director within the deadline. Once officially assigned, the PhD student must arrange with his Tutor and his Director their signatures, and then submit the original document to the Secretariat of the Department of Molecular Biology (if the enrolment was done at the Faculty of Sciences) or the Department of Biochemistry (if the enrolment was done at the Faculty of Medicine), to be signed by the corresponding Coordinator of the PhD Programme. Once signed, the Secretariat will send the document to the Centre of Postgraduate Studies for the final signature of the Vice-Rector, and then it will be send to the Doctoral School to be archived.

  • The generic guidelines (in Spanish) in which this procedure is based (and the downloadable template document) are located here.

NOTES:

  • All this procedure must NOT be started before the official assignment of the Thesis Director has been done, and MUST be started at last within a month after that official asignment (and always BEFORE the evaluation of the Academic Tutelage).
  • If the Academic Committee authorizes the change of the Tutor/Director, a new document including all the signatures must be done again following all the previous steps.

· Research Plan

The PhD student must propose an initial Research Plan that he shall follow to carry out the Thesis project, and which must be endorsed by the Tutor and the Thesis Director. It could be improved and expanded throughout the development of the Doctoral Thesis. The Research Plan must be submitted during the first 6 months after the enrolment, and always within the period specified by the Academic Committee. The student must upload the initial Research Plan to the SIGMA website, and will be able to upload subsequent updated versions of it until the acceptance date specified by the Tutor/Director. From that moment on the document will be reading-only and it will be evaluated by the Academic Committee, that will decide whether is valid or requires modifications.

  • The generic guidelines (in Spanish) in which this procedure is based (and the downloadable template document) are located here.

· Annual Report

Once a year, at the end of each evaluation period, the student must elaborate an Annual Report to be submitted to the Academic Committee before the relevant evaluation date (see the procedure here). This document must be also uploaded to the SIGMA website.

  • The generic guidelines (in Spanish) in which this procedure is based (and the downloadable template document) are located here.

· Activities Document

Since his enrolment, the student must register all the activities in the Activities Document, and keep it updated on the SIGMA website. This document must reflect all kind of activities offered by the Programme in accordance with the ones registered in the Verification report. The student may propose/include the specific activities that he considers suitable for his research training within each kind of activity offered by the Programme, and/or the ones proposed by his Tutor/Director. The proposed activities must always be authorized by the Tutor/Director, who will periodically review the Activities Document.
The student must prove the participation in the approved activities within the corresponding period (courses, seminars, meetings, conferences, lectures, publications, etc.) and provide certifications and/or other documents that support his participation. Those documents must be also uploaded to the SIGMA website.

  • The template document to justify the attendance to seminars can be downloaded from here.
  • The generic guidelines (in Spanish) in which this procedure is based are located here.

The minimum required activities to achieve a positive evaluation in subsequent tutelages will be:

  • 1st Tutelage: attendance to 6 seminars.
  • 2nd Tutelage: attendance at 10 seminars +  1 training course + 1 scientific meeting * + mini-review.
  • 3rd Tutelage: attendance at 10 seminars + 1 training course.

*This activity can be also done in the 1st or 3rd year


 

2. Special procedure for Tutelage recognition

According to the Article 8.1 "Special situations of deadlines for the authorization of Thesis deposit" included in the "Monitoring procedure of Doctoral students", the following students may request Tutelage recognition:

  • Phd students from the UAM, coming from old Programmes (R.D. earlier than 99/2011).
  • Rest of PhD students at the UAM.

The full Article can be read from the "Monitoring procedure of Doctoral students" document available here.

A scheme of this Special procedure for Tutelage recongnition is available here.

Students who wish to apply for an advanced evaluation of Tutelage, or for a Tutelage recognition, must submit the corresponding document (see below) to doctorado.gestion@uam.es. Remember that all the specific activities must be uploaded to the SIGMA website first:

  • Template document to request an Advanced evaluation of Tutelage available here.
  • Template document to request a Tutelage recognition available here.

 

3. Monitoring of the Thesis evolution by the Tutor/Director

Tutors and Directors of Doctoral Theses at the UAM must manage the Training activities and Research Plan of their students through the SIGMA website ("Tercer Ciclo SIGMA"). To be able to proceed with the annual evaluation of the student it is essential that all the documents and activities supposed to be evaluated by the Academic Committee of the PhD have been previously validated by the Tutor through the SIGMA website. This website allows the interaction between the student and his Tutor/Director. The main tasks to be performed by the Tutor/Director are as follows:

  • Signing of the Documentary Commitment of Supervision ("Compromiso Documental") (only the first year of studies).
  • Approval of the Research Plan proposal uplodaded by the student to the SIGMA website (if applicable), within the first six months after enrolment of the first Tutelage, or as otherwise determined by the Academic Committee.
  • Uploading of the Director's Report (approved by the Tutor), annually before the evaluation date. The template document can be downloaded from here.
  • Management, acceptance and validation of the activities proposed by the student for his Activities Document. These activities can't be part of that document until they're accepted by the Tutor/Director in the SIGMA website.

All these documents, once validated by the Tutor, will be evaluated by the Academic Committee. For the annual evaluation the Academic Committee will review the Research Plan, these reports, and the Activities Document. The periods to submit the Reasearch Plan and to be evaluated by the Academic Committee will be published in the Academic calendar for Phd Studies available here.

Other useful documents for Tutors/Directors are:

  • Reference Manual for Tutors/Directors of the PhD in Molecular Biosciences: link.
  • Instructions to validate the Activities Document by the Tutor: link.
  • Instructions to validate the Research Plan by the Tutor: link.
  • Instructions to upload the annual Director's Report by the Tutor: link.

 

4. Doctoral thesis writing style

Instructions for the writing of the doctoral thesis in both classic and "compendium of publications" format can be found here: link. Thesis with compendium of publications format require the previous approval of the Academic Committee and must include at least three research articles published in journals, with an impact factor within the first quartile of the research field in at least one of them. In two of the articles the PhD student must be first author


 

5. Thesis submission

All the information can be found at the UAM's website: link

Please note that before submitting ANYTHING students must check and follow the specific calendar & rules of the Department (located at the beginning of this webpage, just under the Index), that supersede those from the UAM.


     

    6. PhD Diploma equivalence

    It will be granted only to PhD applicants with thesis that resulted in the publication of a minimum of two articles in prestigious journals (first quartile).


     

     7. Extraordinary procedure for submitting the Thesis when there are disagreements between the student and the Director

    Find the information in Spanish here