PRELIMINARY PROCESS

First: "Pretesis" seminar

When the tutor gives the go-ahead, a date will be set for presenting a seminar on the research carried out ("pretesis"). This seminar is one of the compulsory Training Activities of the Doctoral Programme ("the doctoral candidate, as a preparatory activity for the defence of the same, must give a seminar that includes the objectives, results and conclusions of his/her research"). This seminar will be announced and given in the presence of the director/s and the research tutor as well as at least one member of the Doctoral Programme. Due to the public nature of the seminar, the following information should be sent by e-mail to dbbm@ucm.es (with a copy to turnay@ucm.es) at least a few days in advance:

•  Name and surname(s) of the doctoral student, director(s) and tutor
•  Thesis title
•  Place, date and time of the seminar

Once the seminar has been presented, this activity must be included in the RAPI2 application. After that, Step 1 of the Doctoral Thesis submission can begin. After checking that the Thesis complies with the requirements established in the R.D. 99/2011 and in the UCM Doctoral Regulations, the director/s must issue a reasoned assessment report of the Doctoral Thesis (Document 1 in Spanish & English), and the tutor must indicate his approval (Document 2). These reports must be sent to the Academic Commission.

Second: Report of the external expert evaluators

Although the proposal of the evaluation panel and external assessors does not correspond to the PhD student or their supervisors, the Academic Commission may consider that the PhD students and supervisors formulate justified pre-proposals regarding the external assessors and the members of the evaluation panel that will assess the PhD Thesis. The pre-proposals must indicate the suitability of the proposed specialist researchers and the relationship they have with the subject of research in the Doctoral Thesis studies.

The Academic Commission recommends to provide a list of four external specialists in the subject together with the corresponding curriculum vitae in abbreviated format. The proposal of external expert evaluators must be sent to the Academc Commission (dbbm@ucm.es) in a Word format file that must include for each evaluator a summary of at least 10-12 lines justifying the selection, their positions and their e-mail addresses. In accordance with RD 576/2023, the external experts MUST NOT BELONG TO THE UCM.

If the Doctoral Thesis opts to obtain the International Mention, the four external evaluators/experts included in the proposal must belong to non-Spanish higher education institutions or research institutes.

In relation to the external expert evaluators, the Academic Commission, or the Coordinator in Permanent Commission, will select two of them at an ordinary meeting (which may or may not coincide with those suggested), with whom it will contact in order to obtain the reports. These reports will be sent to the Academic Commission and will be anonymous to the PhD student and director. If any of them indicate minor changes, defects of form or substantial modifications to the doctoral thesis, the Academic Commission will contact the director and the PhD student; the proposed amendments must be carried out or must be rebutted in a well-reasoned manner. For this reason, the manuscript should not be definitively bound until the reports of the specialist reviewers have been received in case any changes need to be made.

Once the Academic Commission has checked that the changes suggested by the evaluators have been included, Step 2 of the Doctoral Thesis submission can begin.

Third: Proposal of the members of the Doctoral Thesis tribunal (included in Step 2 of the Thesis submission)

The selection board proposal will be included directly in the telematic application when completing Step 2 and must comply with the specifications regarding the composition of the UCM selection boards. The proposal must include 10 members, of which the first five members correspond to the full members and the following five to the substitutes. The order in which they must be included is: the 1st and 5th must be from the UCM and from the 2nd to the 4th from outside the UCM. This distribution is maintained among the substitutes (6th to 10th). Similarly, at least one of the members and substitutes must belong to the Doctoral Program. Finally, and in case the thesis has an international mention; the 2nd and 7th must be researchers from foreign centers or laboratories, regardless of their nationality. In step 2, a document including the suitability report must be included for each of the proposed members of the tribunal (Document 3), including the substitutes.

Criteria to be met by the proposed external experts or members of the Doctoral Thesis tribunal, in order to seek a plural composition from the institutional point of view:

•  The proposed members must be related to the subject of research carried out in the Doctoral Thesis; those who belong to the research group of the PhD student cannot form part of it.
•  The pre-proposed researchers must have an adequate level of scientific and academic prestige with accredited and recent research experience and, in general, must have obtained their doctoral degree more than 5 years before the date of submission of the doctoral thesis.
•  The proposed members cannot be co-authors of publications of the PhD student in more than 30% of the scientific production of the PhD student during the stage of his doctoral thesis.
•  Neither the thesis director(s) nor the tutor may form part of the panel.

In order to present the Thesis in "papers-style" format, it is necessary to have previously requested it from the Academic Commission. Similarly, in order to write the Doctoral Thesis in a language other than Spanish (language that must be of common use in the scientific field of knowledge in this area), the PhD student must request authorisation from the Academic Commission. The application must be approved by the director and tutor. In the case of obtaining such authorisation, the original must include a summary in Spanish that includes the introduction, objectives, conclusions and fundamental contributions of the doctoral thesis.

In order to obtain the International Mention, a minimum stay abroad of three months is required, which may have been carried out in a maximum of two trips previously approved by the Academic Commission (see conditions in the corresponding sections).

The process for the submission of the Doctoral Thesis cannot begin until the final version of the Doctoral Thesis is available, with the approval of the director. The tutor must also approve the manuscript and can advise the student on the procedures to be followed, which are described below.

New procedure for the digital submission of Doctoral Theses (instructions)