Please, check at your Activities Document, that the information you have entered about your Doctoral Thesis and your personal details are correct.

Any changes (title, supervisor or tutor) must be done before submisssion:

Before submitting the doctoral thesis, you will need to get 2 expert reports from doctors belonging to external centers (not to the UPF neither to the student main research institution).  In order to get these reports, follow these steps:

• Choose with your supervisor 2 experts and send them a digital copy of your thesis
• Ask the experts to fill in and sign this template report 
• Your supervisor will be responsible for revising the expert reports and, in case applies, to ask you to incorporate the changes suggested by the experts in your thesis.

Keep in mind that:

• You will need to present these 2 expert reports together with the rest of the thesis submission documents to be able to submit your thesis. 
• During the thesis submission process, your supervisor will have to inform the Academic Commission if the changes suggested by the experts have been incorporated in your thesis or not (he/she will have to explain it in the thesis submission document ‘Supervisor Report’). 
• These 2 experts can be part of your tribunal committee members in your thesis defense.
• Be aware that your committee members will receive a copy of these 2 expert reports so they can might ask you about their content during the defense.

1. Please make an appointment with the PhD Programme in Biomedicine Secretariat by email: [email protected] to submit the Doctoral Thesis. 
2. Once you'll have your appointemnt scheduled, the PhD secretariat will send you a personalDrive Folder Link where you shoudl upload all the required thesis submission documents.
3. Bring to the PhD PRBB office 300.04, 3rd floor; 1 printed book-copy of the doctoral thesis for the UPF library. Together with the original hand signed  "Declaration by the author of the thesis" document (see point 6).

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All documents must be submitted at the same time and duly filled in and signed:

* Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey concerning your experience. Thank you.

Once the notification email with the Doctoral Thesis Defence Authorization and Approval of the Thesis Committee are received you can start organising your thesis defence following these steps. Please note that the date will not be fixed until you recive our confirmation. 

• The thesi defence is a public event so an audience can attend. There are no specific rules concerning the length of the thesis defence at UPF. In general, the event takes from 1 1/2 to 3 hours in total and the doctoral student defends his/her thesis during 45 minutes approximately.

• The chairperson of the committee leads the thesis defence proceedings. The proceedings must consist of the doctoral student's exposé of the research work carried out, the methodology used, the contents and conclusions, with special reference to its original contributions. The members of the committee may ask the doctoral student any questions they deem appropriate. Likewise, the doctors present at the public defence proceedings may ask questions at the time and in the manner stipulated by the chairperson of the panel. 

• The president is also responsible for asking all attendees in the room (virtual or face-to-face) to leave temporarily so that the court can make the deliberation. The attendance to the deliberation session is exclusive for the members of the committee.

• When the defence is completed, the members of the committee grade the thesis Fail, Pass, Good or Excellent. In case of obtaining an Excellent, they may also propose the thesis for a "cum laude mention" and for being a cadidate of the extraordinary award for its academic year. Both mentions shall be decided by secret ballot of the members of the committe and the student must obtain a unanimous positive vote to achieve each mention. For that reason at the end of the defense the committee cannot make public the maximum grade obtained.

• At the end of the defence we would need to receive all the required documents, previously received by mail. You can sign with your digital signature / IdCAT or print, sign and scan the documents (in this case, we ask you to send the original copies by post, too. UPF Phd Program. PRBB building. C/Doctor Aiguader, 88. 08003, Barcelona. Spain). We'll appreciate receiving by email the scanned copy of the documents signed after the defence (PhD in Biomedicine <[email protected]>). At latest the day after the thesis defence.

Official documents

The secretary of the committee should supervise and collect all the official documents of the Doctoral Thesis Defence, and hand them in to the PhD Programme Secretariat after the defence (PRBB, 3rd floor, office 300.04)

Possible doctoral thesis grades

• Fail
• Pass
• Good
• Excellent.

Only when a doctoral thesis is graded Excellent, the members of the committee may propose a "Cum Laude mention" by secret ballot.

After the defence, the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Progamme is responsible for counting the votes and grading the doctoral thesis Excellent Cum Laude, if the secret ballot is unanimously in favor. The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme is also responsible for informing the doctoral student, the thesis supervisor and the members of the committee of the final grade within the week after the defence.

If your main tribunal members are travelling to attend the thesis defence please contact us by mail at the following address [email protected]

Please, note that we will not be able to reimburse your travel expenses if you manage transport or/and accommodation by yourself.

We can offer a limited budget on covering the travel expenses of the main members of the board and we do not charge diets. Please confirm the limits with the PhD secretariat and look for an alternative budged in case of extra expenses.

Alternatively, the university offers you the chance to attend the defence electronically. This makes management more affordable and environmentally friendly.