In order to be admitted to Communication PhD Programme offered by UPF, candidates must provide accreditation that they have obtained an accredited undergraduate degree (Bachelor degree or recognised equivalent degree from an accredited Higher Education Institution).
Moreover, they have to proof that they have obtained or are in position to obtain an accredited graduate/master's degree(equivalent to a Spanish Master Universitario/Oficial, Master's of Research.... ) which enables them to access a Phd programme in their home country.
In order to access to a doctoral programme at UPF, you need to have completed 300 ECTS credits, 60 of those have to correspond to an official graduate, research orientated master's programme.
Students holding one of the following degrees are not required to have completed a Master’s degree:
- Spanish DEA (Diploma de Estudios Avanzados) according to RD 778/1998
- Suficiencia Investigadora according to RD185/1985
- undergraduate degree of 300 ECTS credits (such as Medicine...)
- undergraduate degrees with the equivalence to MECES level 3, according to RD 697/2014
Mandatory documents to be submitted
- A photocopy of the undergraduate degree/diploma or Certification/proof of degree completion (Bachelor degree or recognised equivalent degree from an accredited Higher Education Institution).
- A photocopy of the official final undergraduate transcript. with a weighed score from 1 to 4. (Important: the global average grade of the academic record obtained based on the numerical scale of 0-4 set forth in Annex I of Spanish Royal Decree 1497/1987 will be equivalent to another global average grade, based on the numerical scale of 0-10 set forth in Spanish Royal Decree 1125/2003, according to the conversion table published on https://sede.csic.gob.es/tabla_conversion). In the case of university studies conducted in foreign centres, you can make the average grade declaration of equivalences. If the record does not include the weighted grade, it will be considered to be a 1 by default.).
- At least two letters of recommendation, preferably from PhD lecturers at prestigious Universities. Preferably from PhD lecturers at prestigious universities. These letters must be confidential and must be sent directly by the signatories to the Admissions Office.
In order to optimise the treatment and security of the recommendation letters, the candidate will have to request those via the online application system, where he/she will need to indicate the e-mail adress of the person/the persons he/she wishes to be recommended by. That person will receive an e-mail indicating that the candidate wishes a recommenation letter from him/her. The letter will be uploaded by the referee in the online application system. Non-institutional addresses such as *yahoo, *gmail, *hotmail, etc... will not be accepted.
If you have finished your Master's degree when you formalise your application, you will need to send us the following documents:
- A photocopy of the graduate/master's degree/diploma or Certification/proof of degree completion.
- A photocopy of the official final graduate/master's transcript.
However, if you have not yet completed your graduate/master's studies when formalising application, you will need to provide us with the following documents:
- A signed declaration of obtaining your graduate/master's degree before the commencement of the PhD programme.
- A photocopy of the provisional graduate/master's transcript.
If the diploma or the academic transcript are not written in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Portuguese or Italian, you will also have to include the respective sworn translations into Catalan or Spanish.
ASSESSMENT OF THE SELECTION CRITERIA, aproved by the Doctoral Programme Academic Commission on September 15th, 2020
| 1. Academic transcript |
40% |
| 2. Research Pre-project |
50% |
| a. Pre-project compliance with the Department's Research Groups |
20% |
| b. Quality of the Pre-project (objectives, state of play and methods) |
20% |
| c. Excelence of the research Pre-project |
5% |
| d. Being awarded with a Scholarship to develop the research project report |
5% |
| 3. Recomendation letters |
10% |
Optional supporting documents
The following optional supporting documents are not compulsory but may be evaluated by the department for admission purposes (please submit a photocopy of these documents/accreditations):
- Research background
- Proof of English language knowledge:
- Certificate accrediting knowledge of the English language
- An essay by the candidate written in English explaining motivations for applying to the research project in any of the research lines, with a maximum length of 2 pages.