The Code of good practices for the preparation and supervision of PhD thesis constitutes a set of recommendations and commitments to guarantee the quality of the doctoral process. It establishes the requirements that predoctoral researchers and all of the members of thesis supervision teams must meet, describes the measures to promote quality and clarifies the functions and responsibilities of the PhD candidates and the individuals who carry out their supervision.

These guidelines complement national legislation and UCM regulations, which can be found on the website of the Doctoral School, and seek to bring the university in line with the European Commission’s Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R). The Code includes a series of annexes that address specific aspects of research, such as ethical principles and codes, good practices, authorship and plagiarism, data management and others that should be considered an integral part of it.

The main responsibility of PhD candidates is to undertake high quality research that concludes with the defence of the PhD thesis, as well as actively participating in the academic environment. The supervisory team should guide and orientate the doctoral candidate through that process, and introduce him or her to internal, national and international research groups and networks. This code aims to contribute to guiding and ensuring the quality of these processes.