The University of La Laguna has a dedicated website for current Doctoral Programs. It will include admissions profiles, administrative matters related to enrollment, the objectives and competencies associated with the degree, as well as information on scholarships and grants available to students to pursue their studies.
With regard to the dissemination channels aimed at potential students and in relation to enrolment, the Universities of La Laguna will publish on its website, as well as in other electronic and analogue media, the enrolment calendars, in addition to this Report. Optionally, coinciding with the enrolment period, informative material will be published annually with relevant data on research teams, lines of research, training activities, assessment regulations, etc., as well as all the electronic addresses and telephone numbers of interest; especially those of the researchers. The ULL Doctorate website will specifically contain information on admission and enrolment deadlines, common to all Doctorate programmes. These deadlines are updated each year based on the academic and enrolment calendars, which are approved annually by the Governing Council and may have certain variations from one year to the next.
Other dissemination activities include information sessions aimed at undergraduate and master's students with the aim of actively recruiting students.
Finally, direct communication with candidates is also planned prior to their enrolment. This is done through the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme. It is also worth highlighting in this regard that the specific website of the Institute of Political and Social Sciences of the ULL, which has been in preparation for over a year and is currently ready to be implemented immediately, contains abundant information about the research groups, their projects and activities, which will be very useful for candidates for access to the Doctorate.
The international collaborations of the programme have allowed two Marie Sklodowska-Curie European Training Networks (ETNs) to be evaluated. The first integrates the Universities of Amsterdam, Wageningen (NL), Aalborg (DK), Tromso (NO, Coordinating U) and La Laguna, on the topic of marine governance in the context of the European strategy for marine governance. Blue Growth .
This European initiative presents specific governance challenges - for example, in the governance of marine tourism - for which the training of doctoral students in this ETN is designed. The second ETN is organised around the challenges presented by research on small-scale fishing in Europe, which receives special attention in the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, which have recently been approved by the European authorities. One of the tasks undertaken in the TBTI project mentioned above has been to detect the research deficiencies on this subject, and this ETN would solve some of them from an interdisciplinary perspective. This ETN is organised by the University of Aberdeen and has the participation of the University of Santiago de Compostela, the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, the Technological Centre of the Sea (Galicia), the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Greece). The possibilities of doctoral student exchanges between the Universities and Research Centres linked as promoters of these ETNs, as well as with the remaining institutions that appear as level 2 partners, are especially interesting for potential doctoral students of the programme.
Contact and welcome of new PhD students.
The welcome of potential PhD students begins before enrolment. The PhD website, in addition to formal matters, will offer detailed information on the lines of research and the research projects connected to each of them, information that will be updated every year. Candidates with any questions regarding the lines of research that interest them may contact the programme coordinator to exchange impressions on any aspect they consider relevant. In turn, the coordinator may, where appropriate, redirect potential candidates to specific researchers who can provide them with additional information on these lines or on the research projects in which they can be integrated. At the beginning of each academic year, a welcome day will be held for new PhD students, in which both the students and members of the academic committee, specific researchers and some of the PhD students already enrolled in the programme in previous years will participate. The aim is to provide relevant information on the dynamics of the PhD programme, as well as to resolve any questions that new researchers may have.
In general, for access and admission to doctoral studies, the provisions of articles 6 and 7 of RD 99/2011 of January 28, which regulates official doctoral studies, as well as the regulations of the Official Doctoral Studies of the ULL.
Access:
1. It will be necessary to be in possession of official Spanish Bachelor's degrees (or equivalent) and a Master's degree.
2. Likewise, those who are in any of the following situations may access:
a) Be in possession of an official Spanish university degree, or from another country belonging to the European Higher Education Area, which qualifies for access to a Master's degree in accordance with the provisions of article 16 of Royal Decree 1393/2007, of October 29, and have passed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits in the set of official university studies, of which at least 60 must be at Master's level.
b) Hold an official Spanish Graduate qualification, the duration of which, in accordance with EU law, is at least 300 ECTS credits. These graduates must take the compulsory training supplements referred to in these regulations, unless the corresponding research curriculum is equivalent in training value to the research credits from Master's studies.
c) Hold a degree obtained in accordance with foreign educational systems, without the need for its homologation, after verification by the university that it accredits a level of education equivalent to that of the official Spanish Master's degree and that it qualifies for access to doctoral studies in the country issuing the degree.
This admission will not, under any circumstances, imply the recognition of the applicant's previous qualifications or their recognition for purposes other than access to doctoral studies.
d) Be in possession of another Spanish Doctorate degree obtained in accordance with previous university regulations.
e) Doctoral students who have begun their doctoral program in accordance with other previous regulations may access doctoral studies regulated by RD 99/2011, subject to admission to the doctoral program as established in the second additional provision, point two, of RD 99/2011.
Students who meet the requirements detailed above will be admitted to the research period in accordance with the specific access requirements and evaluation criteria that will be applied by the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Program as indicated below:
During the admission process, the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Program will evaluate each of the applications submitted according to the following scoring criteria:
Accredited participation or collaboration in research projects related to the lines of research of the Doctoral Program:
Applications from those who meet the above-mentioned access requirements must be submitted within the time limits and in accordance with the procedures established by the University of La Laguna, with a detailed and documented curriculum that allows the aforementioned sections to be evaluated.
Part-time students
The program offers the possibility of admitting part-time students, as stipulated in Royal Decree 99/2011 and the ULL doctoral regulations. These cases must be justified based on the nature of the work to be carried out and the doctoral candidate's circumstances, but in any case, they will be subject to the same admission requirements and the same criteria will be used for grading. The Academic Committee of the doctoral program is the body responsible for authorizing the applicant's enrollment on a full-time or part-time basis. It is also possible for a student to change their enrollment from full-time to part-time depending on unforeseen circumstances.
Any change in the doctoral student's program, in terms of dedication, must be duly justified by submitting a request to the Committee, which will then decide on the matter and notify the corresponding University Service.
Students wishing to pursue this Doctoral Program part-time must apply to the Program's Academic Committee when submitting their application for admission to the program or, once admitted, when any of the circumstances listed below apply and qualify for recognition as part-time students.
The criteria and procedures for admission of part-time students to this Doctoral Program will be adjusted to the provisions of the Progress and Permanence Regulations of the University of La Laguna and in article 7 of the Regulations for Official Doctoral Studies from the University of La Laguna. According to the aforementioned article 7.3, applicants must justify their inability to pursue these studies full-time due to work-related issues, special educational needs, family care needs, high-performance or high-level athletes, as well as any other reasons contemplated in the ULL's permanence regulations or, where applicable, in the regulations that implement them.The change of dedication of students is regulated in article 7.4 of the Regulations of Official Doctoral Studies of the University of La Laguna: Doctoral students may request a change of dedication regime for justified reasons. The academic committee of the official doctoral program will issue a report in this regard authorizing or denying such a change. An appeal against this resolution may be filed before the Rector within one month of its notification.
Students with special educational needs
Applicants to the Doctoral programme with special educational needs arising from their disability must first contact the Doctoral Programme Coordinator to inform him/her.
In these cases, equal opportunities and the full integration of university students with disabilities into university academic life must be guaranteed, as well as the promotion and awareness-raising of all members of the university community.
Students with specific educational needs arising from disabilities will have an academic advisor appointed by the Doctoral Program Academic Committee during the admissions process. This advisor may be their tutor or specialists designated by the University of La Laguna. The Program Academic Committee will individually analyze the cases of students with special educational needs arising from disabilities in order to adapt the training program to ensure the acquisition of doctoral-level competencies. The Academic Committee will receive a report from the advisor and will submit the corresponding proposal to the Student Support Service, in accordance with the Program for Students with Specific Educational Support Needs (PAED), to identify the necessary support and counseling services, which will assess the need for possible curricular adaptations or itineraries.
Students with special educational needs will receive a specific score in the admission procedure, in accordance with the provisions of this report: up to a maximum of 2 points. The purpose of this allocation is to promote equality in the admission conditions of students with difficulties, to compensate for the difficulties that these students have had throughout their academic life in order to obtain results comparable to those of students who do not have similar difficulties.
As detailed in the previous section, students with special educational needs can apply for part-time enrollment.
Royal Decree 99/2011, of 28 January, regulating official doctoral studies, as well as the Regulations on Official Doctoral Studies at the University of La Laguna, establish that admission to doctoral programmes may include the requirement for specific training supplements, in accordance with the admission profiles established for the corresponding doctoral programme. For the purposes of public prices and the granting of scholarships and study grants, these specific training supplements will be considered as doctoral level training.
Doctoral students admitted to the programme within the recommended access profile will not be required to complete additional training. Doctoral students with the additional access profile will have to develop the following: training complements.