Regulations

The UPF Academic Regulations for Doctorate Courses establish in their Article 11 the following requirements:

• The doctoral thesis must consist of an original piece of research in one of the research lines of the doctoral programme.

   

• The doctoral thesis may consist of a series of articles obtained from the doctoral student’s own research. In this case, the thesis must include a report presenting the thesis defended, with an introductory chapter and some final conclusions.

   

To fulfil these requirements and meet the standards and specificities of this doctoral programme, the AC requires that the submitted doctoral thesis meets the following additional requirements.

A doctoral thesis may be submitted in one of the following two formats:

• A classical thesis book, consisting of chapters written in a cohesive way. Next to the original research described in the thesis, the rest of the contents cannot be made out of copying & pasting from other sources, and especially not from other PhD theses.
• A set of articles (with a minimum of 2) preceded by an introductory chapter and followed by a discussion and conclusions chapter or chapters. With at least 1 article already published. We discourage the submission of a set of articles where all of them are manuscripts in preparation because, as unfinished work, they often contain errors and lack coherence. If they are not published at the time of submission, we encourage depositing them in a preprint server such as arXiv (http://arxiv.org) or bioRxiv (http://biorxiv.org) and including the preprint citation reference in the thesis. With respect to the set of articles included:

a. There cannot be two doctoral theses from two different doctoral students including the same set of articles.

b. An article with two or more joint first authors can be used in more than one thesis as long as each PhD student has made a major research contribution on this article. This specific major contribution of each PhD student in the article must be described in the manuscript of the doctoral thesis.

c.A doctoral thesis must include one or more original research contributions. While review articles are a valuable exercise of synthesis of a research field or problem, and can be included in the thesis as additional thesis material, they do not qualify as original research contributions.

More detailed information at: https://www.upf.edu/web/phd-biomedicine/submit-your-thesis

Students enrolled from the 2023-2024 academic year onwards

You have to deposit your doctoral thesis before the end of the 4th full-time or 7th part-time academic year. Before the end of the above deadlines, if you have not submitted the application for deposit, you can request an extension of one more year. 

In case of presenting a degree of disability equal to or greater than 33%, the duration will be a maximum of 6 years full-time and 9 years part-time.

Situations of temporary disability, birth, adoption, guardianship for the purpose of adoption, foster care, risk during pregnancy, risk during breastfeeding and gender violence or any other situation contemplated in the current regulations will interrupt the computation of the time limit for the duration of the studies.

During the period of 4 years (or 7 in the case of PT), or during the period of 6 years - when a doctor accredits a disability (or 9 years PT) - a voluntary temporary interruption may be requested for a maximum period of one year, which may be extended for up to a further year. In no case may a voluntary interruption be requested during the period of the extension.

Students enrolled before the 2023-2024 academic year

You must deposit your doctoral thesis before the end of the 3rd full-time academic year or the 5th part-time academic year. Before the end of the above deadlines, if you have not submitted the application for deposit, you can request an extension of one more year. In exceptional cases, there is the possibility of requesting a second one-year extension*.

During the 3 years period (or 5 years in the case of PT), doctoral students may request a voluntary temporary interruption for a maximum period of one year, extendable for up to one more year. In no case may a voluntary interruption be requested during the period of any of the extensions. In addition, there are situations of sick leave due to health reasons or related to maternity or paternity that also extend the period for depositing.

Health, maternity and paternity-related leaves of absence also extend the deposit deadline.

*Note that Second extensions are not garantee

Any request related to the duration should be addressed to the secretary's office of your studies

[email protected]

You should note:

• Each doctoral program may establish the format and content of the extension request. 
• Requests must be communicated at the time they take place and not retroactively.

More detailed information at: https://www.upf.edu/web/secretaria-doctorat/durada-dels-estudis-de-doctorat

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Procedure:

1st Time extension documents required:

1. Application form (signed by you and your thesis supervisor)

​2nd Time extension documents required (under  exceptional  circumstances):

1. A report of your thesis supervisor/s giving explicit support to the application, explaining the reasons for this second year extension and including a specific work plan with an estimated deposit date by which the student will deposit the thesis during the following academic year (signed by the supervisor/s).
2. Application form

Submit at: All applications must be submitted online at the Electronic general instance. For any help, please contact by Help Desk Center (CAU) and telephone help: (+34) 93 542 22 28.

The UPF Academic Regulations for Doctorate Courses establish in their Article 22 that the AC of a PhD programme may nominate for a Special Award up to one every ten doctoral theses defended during one academic year. The AC will submit these nominations to the Steering Committee of the UPF Doctoral School, who will make the ultimate decision on granting the Special Award to the nominated doctoral theses. The awarded doctoral theses will be reimbursed for the tax paid in the application for the doctoral degree certificate.

3.1 Evaluating committee and criteria

The candidate doctoral theses eligible for being nominated for the Special Award will be those that were defended along an entire academic year and received from the Examination Board the maximum qualification of Excellent Cum Laude, and the unanimous vote to be considered eligible for the Special Award. The vote for the Special Award eligibility will remain confidential and will not be disclosed to anyone until the next academic year when the nomination procedure starts.

The AC will form a Special Award Committee (SAC) that will carry out the nomination procedure. The AC will appoint members of the SAC among doctors with accredited research experience, who have not supervised candidate doctoral theses that are eligible for the award, and trying to meet a fair degree of gender balance and representation of research lines among its members. The AC will also designate a president and a secretary of the SAC.

The SAC will decide the evaluating criteria that should revolve around the quality and originality of the research contributions of the doctoral theses.

3.2 Documentation and meeting of the Special Award Committee

The AC will provide to the SAC the documentation that the SAC considers appropriate to evaluate the candidate doctoral theses, such as:

• A copy of each doctoral thesis.
• An abstract of the major research contributions of each doctoral thesis.
• Summary indicators of the research contributions of each doctoral thesis, such as number of published articles derived from the thesis.

The AC may request part of the documentation to the former students who defended the candidate doctoral theses and may discard for further evaluation those theses whose authors do not provide the requested documentation.

The SAC will meet only once to reach a consensus evaluation of the candidate doctoral theses and will decide which ones should be nominated for the Special Award. The AC will provide the requested documentation with sufficient time in advance to be evaluated by the SAC members prior to their meeting. If one or more members of the SAC cannot attend the meeting, they can communicate their evaluation to the president of the SAC, who will share it with the rest of the SAC at the meeting.

3.3 Procedure to evaluate the candidate doctoral theses

At the meeting of the SAC, its members will confidentially share their respective evaluation of the candidate doctoral theses and will attempt to reach a consensus about what doctoral theses should be nominated for the Special Award without exceeding the maximum number of nominations established by the regulations of the UPF Academic Regulations for Doctoral Courses. If the members of the SAC cannot reach such a consensus, then a ranking of the candidate doctoral theses will be formed on the basis of votes made by the members of the SAC. The president of the SAC will decide what number of the most voted theses, not exceeding the maximum allowed, will be nominated for the Special Award. The SAC will elaborate a justification report that will summarize for each doctoral thesis the research contributions that the SAC has considered for nominating it.

3.4 Ruling of the Special Award Committee and communication of the award

The AC will accept the ruling of the SAC, which will not be open to appeal. The PhD Programme in Biomedicine will submit to the Doctoral School the list of nominated doctoral theses, along with the justification report. Once the Steering Committee makes a decision to grant the Special Award, the PhD Programme in Biomedicine will communicate the decision by email to the awardees and their former thesis supervisors.

The UPF Academic Regulations for Doctorate Courses establish in their Article 4 that the ordinary regime for undertaking doctoral studies is on a full-time basis. However, at the request of the doctoral student, the AC of the doctoral programme may authorize the doctoral student to enrol the PhD programme on a part-time basis, in accordance with the provisions of Article 3 of the RD 99/2011. Because the part-time regime is extraordinary, the AC of the PhD Programme in Biomedicine will allow only a limited number of part-time enrolments and consider only applications of doctoral students under one of the following circumstances:

1. Students appointed as at least half-time medical doctors or nurses in hospitals or healthcare centres.

2. Female students with children under 7 years of age.

3. Students with disabled children.

4. Students in charge of dependant ascending line relatives.

5. Students with disabilities.

Students under one of these circumstances are eligible to apply for part-time enrolment by submitting to the PhD programme secretariat the following documentation:

• Application form for part-time enrolment.

• For case (a) students, copy of the contract with the hospital where they have their appointment. For case (b) students, copy of the family book. For case (c) students, legal accreditation of the disability level of the child. For case (d) students, legal accreditation of being in charge of dependant ascending line relatives. For case (e) students, legal accreditation of their disability level.

• Report by the thesis supervisor giving explicit support to the application and including a work plan that ends with the deposit of the doctoral thesis before the end of the ordinary period for part-time doctoral studies, the 5^th doctoral year, as established by the RD 99/2011.

The application can be submitted once the student has been admitted to the PhD programme and no later than the end of the second year of enrolment. Applications submitted after this period will not be considered by the AC.

By the end of the academic year the AC will study the applications submitted before August 1^st. More concretely, during the month of September the AC will discard those applications that do not meet the eligibility criteria and will rank the rest by the feasibility of the submitted work plan within the part-time regime. Finally, the AC will select the top-ranked applications according to the number of available places for part-time regime, which will not exceed the 10% of the offered places per year.

When an application is approved, the enrolment of the student will change automatically to part-time and it will not be possible to change it back to full-time. When the application is rejected, if the student was already enrolled in the PhD programme, he/she will remain enrolled as a full-time student. If the student was not yet enrolled, he/she will be able to enrol only as a full-time student.

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Procedure:

Document required:

1. Application form

Applications: submitted before August 1st and resolution: by the end of September

(Please read Specific Regulation of the PhD in Biomedicine program for further information about this procedure)

Submit at: All applications must be submitted online at the Electronic general instance. For any help, please contact by Help Desk Center (CAU) and telephone help: (+34) 93 542 22 28.

A temporary break is a period of time in which the doctoral student is unable to conduct doctoral research and shifts the deadline to submit the doctoral thesis by the amount of time taken by the temporary break, within the maximum allowed by doctoral regulations. Article 3.2 of the RD 99/2011, implemented in article 15.2 of the UPF academic doctorate regulations, establishes that the AC may authorise a temporary break for a maximum period of one year, which can be extended to one additional year, under the AC’s own criteria on the basis of the student’s application and the given justified grounds.

The AC considers the following circumstances as directly eligible for a temporary break:

1. Sick leave.
2. Pregnancy risk.
3. Maternity.
4. Paternity.
5. Adoption.
6. Risk during breastfeeding.

Other eligible circumstances may include those in which the student must help in supervened situations affecting direct relatives such as the severe illness of his/her own parents or children. Professional employment activities are not eligible for a temporary break.

The Academic Committee of the doctoral programme will assess the student's progress towards completing the doctoral thesis and the program compulsory activities every year. This assessment is based:

• Activity Document
• Research Plan
• Reports from the director and the tutor

Students have 2 opportunities to present their requirements annually:

1st call: deadline to present your results: May 31st (The results of the annual evaluation -1st call- will be released each year by the end of September). In the event of a negative assessment, the academic regulations give the student the opportunity to be reassessed on a 2nd call within six months. You must present all the missing required results before the end of January to be reassessed on the 2nd call.
2nd call: deadline to present your results: January 31st. (The results of the annual evaluation -2nd call- will be released each year by the end of February). A second negative or "No Presented" assessment will force the definitive withdrawal of the student from the PhD Programme in Biomedicine.

REGULATION:

Article 10.2 de la Normativa Acadèmica dels ensenyaments de doctorat

Article 11 del Reial Decret 99/2011, pel qual es regulen els ensenyaments oficials de doctorat (text consolidat amb canvis del Reial Decret 576/2023, de 4 de juliol)