Procedure for assigning a tutor and director
As regulated by Article 9 of the REODULL (Regulations on the Functioning of the Doctoral Program), once admitted, each student will be assigned a tutor by the Academic Committee. The tutor must hold a doctorate and meet the requirements for supervising doctoral theses mentioned in Article 10 of the aforementioned Regulations. The Academic Committee, after consulting the doctoral student, may modify the appointment of the assigned tutor at any time during the doctoral program, provided there are justified reasons. If it deems it appropriate, it may request reports from the tutor and the thesis supervisor.
Functions of the tutor
The duties of the tutor are: a) to regularly review, together with the thesis director, the doctoral student's activity document; b) to endorse, together with the thesis director and before the end of the first year, the research plan drawn up by the doctoral student; c) to sign the teaching commitment, together with the doctoral student, the thesis director and the competent vice-rector representing the ULL; d) to issue the annual report on the doctoral student's activity to the academic committee; e) to ensure the visibility of the ULL in all publications and activities for disseminating the results of the research developed by the doctoral student.
Assignment of director
Within one month of registration, the Academic Committee will assign a thesis director, who may or may not coincide with the tutor.
Thesis directors
They must meet the requirements mentioned in section 5.1.At any time during the doctoral program, the Academic Committee, for justified reasons and after consulting the doctoral candidate, tutor, and supervisor, may modify the appointments and authorize the inclusion of a co-supervisor.
Supervisory Commitment Document
The doctoral student's supervisory duties will be established through a written commitment signed by the vice-rector responsible for postgraduate studies, the doctoral student, their tutor, and their supervisor or co-supervisors. The commitment must be signed within the first three months of the appointment of a tutor and supervisor. The document must include the unconditional acceptance by the doctoral student and supervisor of the respective rights and obligations set forth in the REODULL and in section 5.1 of this report. It will also include a dispute resolution procedure and address aspects related to intellectual or industrial property rights that may arise within the scope of the doctoral program.
The commitment document, once signed by the participants, will be incorporated into the PhD student's Activity Document and filed in their file. The commitment document must conform to the established template.
Conflict resolution procedure
In the event of any non-compliance with any of the points included in the commitment document or the occurrence of any other disagreement related to the development of the doctoral programme, either party may bring it to the attention of the Academic Committee, which will act as mediator with a view to reaching an agreement that puts an end to the dispute. If mediation does not allow the conflict to be resolved after two months have elapsed since the doctoral programme coordinator was informed, it will be forwarded to the Doctoral Committee (or Doctoral School when it is in operation), which must issue a resolution within three months, after hearing the parties and the doctoral programme coordinator. An appeal may be lodged against the agreement of the Doctoral Committee (Doctoral School) before the rector, under the terms provided for in Law 30/1992, of 26 November, on the Legal Regime of Public Administrations and the Common Administrative Procedure.
Activity Record Control and Data Certification
Once the Supervision Commitment Document has been signed, the program's Academic Committee will create the Personalized Activity Document (DAD) for the individual registration of the doctoral student's activities. This document will record both the training activities referred to in section 4 of this report and the training supplements established by the Academic Committee based on the applicant profile and the tutor's recommendations. Each activity must include the following identification details (type, title, location), source of funding, if applicable, authorization from the tutor/director, purpose of the activity, its relationship to the topic and research plan. Once completed, the activity must include a summary of its content, duration in hours and date of completion, proof of completion, any incidents, and verification/certification by the tutor of its completion, as regulated by the program's CA and the Postgraduate Studies Committee or the ULL Doctoral School when operational. Annually, the tutor, the thesis director, and the CA will incorporate their reports on the completion of the scheduled activities into this document.
The DAP will be regularly reviewed by the tutor and the thesis director.
Annual evaluation of the Research Plan and the Activity Document. Before the end of the first year, the doctoral candidate will prepare a Research Plan that will include at least:
a) justification of the study,b) methodology to be used and objectives to be achieved,c) available resources andd) temporal planning.
This plan may be improved and detailed throughout your stay in the program and must be endorsed by the tutor and the director.
The program's academic committee will annually evaluate the development of the doctoral student's research plan and activities document, along with the reports issued by the tutor and supervisor. The reports of the tutor and supervisor may be joint or independent.
It must include an assessment of the degree of compliance and utilization of the planned activities, a general evaluation of the doctoral student's performance, the progress made in the planned research plan, the difficulties encountered and the proposed solutions, and a summary of the results obtained, including publications and conference communications, if any.
Starting in the second year (fourth year for part-time work), a reasoned estimate of the time required to complete the thesis will be included, along with the possibility of requesting an extension until the end of the third year (fifth year for part-time work). If the supervisor deems completion of the thesis unfeasible, they must provide adequate justification. A positive evaluation is an essential requirement for continuing on the program. In the event of a negative evaluation, the academic committee will issue a report justifying the decision, proposing appropriate corrective measures for the next evaluation. In the event of a negative evaluation, the doctoral student must be re-evaluated within six months, for which purpose a new Research Plan will be drawn up. In the event of another negative evaluation, the doctoral student will be permanently withdrawn from the program.
Forecast of doctoral students' stays in other centres
One of the priority challenges facing the ULL in recent years has been promoting collaborations with other national and international research and postgraduate training centers. The University of La Laguna's geographical location influences these relationships in two ways. On the one hand, the distance makes it more difficult to maintain direct and fluid interaction with leading national and European centers, and on the other, it makes the ULL centers a strategic hub for interaction with African and Latin American countries.
The efforts made in recent years to strengthen these relations are reflected in:
These interactions allow us to foresee an increase in the mobility of doctoral students in the coming years.