1.Introduction

The academic regulations of the UPF PhD studies establish that admitted students must defence a thesis project for all their first year. The doctoral thesis project consists in a description, justification, and planification project supervised by a supervisor. This project will be graded (pass or fail) by a three member examining board.

The project supervisor has to inform the programme Secretariat about a arrangement proposal of the evaluation committee, which has to be made up by three doctors, one of which is the project supervisor, and two members.

2. Hand-in and defence calendar

The student will hand the project to the Humanities Department Secretariat.

The project supervisor has to inform the Secretariat about who the board members are, as well as the date and time agreed to make the defence.

The Secretariat will assemble the committee and the student, and will send the copies of the project to the members of the evaluation committee.

The defences will take place in June and in july.

Once the defence has taken place, the committee director will give grade transcript, signed by all committee members, to the Secretariat.

The thesis project must include the following sections. It is compulsory to fulfill these formal requirements; otherwise, the project will be returned to the student:

• Title.
• 100-150 words abstract: aims, interest, and uniqueness of the scientific contribution. 
• Body of the project.

1. Research problem or analysis object. You should clearly identify the topic you want to work on.
2. Status of the issue about the problem / analysis object. You should refer to the most recent knowledge in the bibliography about this specific phenomenon. It does not have to be a historical overview from the origins of the topic.
3. Objectives of the thesis. You should specify what original contribution you want to make in order to solve the research problem.
4. Hypothesis, assumptions or preconceived notions that your objectives are based on.
5. Methodology and work plan, with a calendar estimate (cronogram).
6. Important bibliography, commenting the 5 most appropriate bibliographical references.

The editing of the project must follow these steps:

• Typewritten, 1'5 spacing, in Arial 11 or Times 12.
• Length from 56,000 and 112,000 characters, including spaces (20-40 pages).
• The sections must be numbered.
• The document must include the page number.
• Bibliography, at the end of the project, alphabetically ordered by authors.
• The bibliographical quotes in the text will be made with the surname of the author, followed by the publication year. All quotes must be in the bibliography.
• All notes must be at the footer.