Regulations for the presentation and reading of theses

Presentation of the Doctoral Thesis

According to the Regulations for Official Doctoral Studies at the University of La Laguna (Resolution of 17 January 2013), the doctoral thesis will consist of an original research work prepared by the candidate in any field of knowledge. The thesis must enable the doctoral candidate to work independently in the field of R&D&I.

Likewise, the doctoral thesis may be developed and, where appropriate, defended in the languages commonly used for scientific communication in the field of knowledge, ensuring that the tribunal that is to judge it has the capacity to do so in the language of presentation.

After completing the thesis, and with the approval of his/her supervisor(s), the doctoral candidate will present it to the academic committee of the Doctoral Program in Regional Development for processing before the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna, in the format established by the ULL, accompanied by the corresponding summary in the form and format established by the Ministry for inclusion in the relevant databases.

The academic committee of the Doctoral Program in Regional Development will send two copies of the doctoral thesis, in the format established by the ULL, to the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna to which the program is attached, and must include:

• The corresponding authorization from the thesis director(s).
• The report of the tutor assigned by the doctoral program, if different from the director.
• The report stating the agreement of the academic committee of the doctoral program in regional development to the public defense of the thesis and which must necessarily state that the requirements for proceeding with its defense have been met.
• The application form for the “International Doctor” designation, together with the corresponding documentation, if eligible.

The corresponding Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will certify by means of registration and stamp that the doctoral thesis meets the requirements established in the Regulations for Official Doctoral Studies of the University of La Laguna (Resolution of January 17, 2013) for its deposit during the period of 15 academic days, in the terms established in the academic calendar of each course, in the General Secretariat of the University of La Laguna. One of the copies will remain on deposit in that Secretariat, and the second copy will remain on deposit at the Doctoral School.

During the deposit period, which will be enabled as a period of public information, any doctor may make any objections and observations he or she considers appropriate to the corresponding Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna, stating his or her agreement or disagreement with the public defence of the thesis, as well as suggestions for improvement to correct deficiencies, all with the aim of guaranteeing its quality. In such case, the Doctoral School will forward them to the doctoral student and the thesis director, as well as to the academic committee of the corresponding doctoral programme, who will have a period of 10 school days to present the appropriate objections to the Doctoral School. The Postgraduate Studies Committee will decide, based on the documentation presented, whether or not the defence of the thesis is appropriate within a period of no more than one month, obtaining, if it deems appropriate, the report of specialists. The Postgraduate Studies Committee of the University of La Laguna must report the reasons for the denial.

The Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will ensure the publicity of this period of public information. Once the period of public information of the doctoral thesis has ended, the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will be responsible for authorizing, if applicable, the defense of the doctoral thesis.

The defence must take place within a maximum period of three months from the date of authorisation. If the defence has not been carried out after this period, the procedure must be started again.

The Doctoral School must give the defense appropriate publicity, authorizing the use of any electronic means of communication for this purpose.

Once the doctoral thesis has been approved, the University will take charge of archiving it in open electronic format in an institutional repository and will send, in electronic format, a copy of the thesis, as well as all the necessary complementary information to the corresponding Ministry for the appropriate purposes.

In exceptional circumstances determined by the academic committee of the program, such as, among others, the participation of companies in the program, the existence of confidentiality agreements with companies or the possibility of generating patents that fall on the content of the thesis, the university will enable the procedure to develop what is set out in section 4 of Art. 26 of the Regulations of Official Doctoral Studies of the University of La Laguna (Resolution of January 17, 2013), which ensure that these aspects are not made public.

Joint supervision regime for doctoral thesis

The ULL regulations provide for the possibility that, within the framework of doctoral studies, a joint supervision procedure for doctoral thesis may be developed between the University of La Laguna and a university from another country, with the aim of creating and developing scientific cooperation between research teams from both institutions and facilitating the mobility of doctoral students. In the Regional Development Doctoral Programme, the joint supervision procedure must meet the following requirements:

• The modalities for admission to the doctorate, deposit and defense of the doctoral thesis will be the same as those governed by the doctoral regulations of the corresponding university.
• Candidates for joint doctoral studies will carry out their work under the supervision and responsibility of a thesis director at each of the universities involved.
• Each thesis joint supervision will be carried out within the framework of a specific agreement between the two interested universities, implying the principle of reciprocity. Under the agreement, each institution will recognise the validity of the doctoral thesis defended within this framework and it will be established which of them will issue the doctoral degree, with the other recognising said degree.
• The doctoral candidate will register the title of the thesis in each of the two universities, and the agreement that is signed must provide that payment of the registration fees and issuance of the title will only be made in one of them.
• The preparation time for the thesis will be shared between the two universities. The stay in neither of them will be less than nine months and may be done in one go or in several periods.
• The publication, exploitation and protection of the results of the research carried out will be ensured by the two host institutions of the doctoral student in accordance with the specific procedures of each country.
• The thesis will be defended only once at either university. This provision must be included in a clause in the agreement signed by the two institutions.
• The committee before which the thesis is to be defended will be designated by mutual agreement between the two universities, and its composition will be subject to the legislation in force at the university where the doctoral thesis is to be defended. The financing of the expenses derived from the committee's actions will be agreed upon in the specific agreement signed between the two universities.
• If the official languages of the two universities are different, the thesis will be written in one of the two languages, or failing that in English, and supplemented by a summary written in the other, which will include the conclusions.
• The Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will ensure compliance with the agreements established in the agreement for doctoral theses developed under a joint supervision regime.

Proposal and appointment of the thesis evaluation committee

When submitting the doctoral thesis, the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme in Regional Development will submit to the Doctoral School a proposal of five experts in the subject matter referred to in the thesis, or in another subject that is related to it, accompanied by their CVs, which will state the merits that qualify them to form part of the tribunal in charge of judging it. The Academic Committee of the doctoral programme will promote, as long as the guidelines and budgetary availability of the university allow it, the proposal of international experts in the thesis tribunals (especially when national experts cannot be counted on) to promote the International Mentions in the doctoral degree contemplated in art. 28 of the Regulations of Official Doctoral Studies of the University of La Laguna.

The following shall be taken into account when appointing the court:

• It must be made up of three full members: a president, a secretary and a member, as well as two substitutes. Of the full members, one must belong to the University of La Laguna and the other two must be external to it and, in any case, with a civil service or contractual relationship with other universities or research organizations. The substitutes will include one from the University of La Laguna and another belonging to institutions outside it. The first will replace the possible absence of the full member of the tribunal belonging to the University of La Laguna, and the second, the absence of any of the other full members.
• All members must have a doctorate degree and proven research experience. Members of the University of La Laguna (regular and substitute) must meet the same conditions as those for being a thesis director. That is, they must meet one of these two requirements: i) Be in possession of at least one section of research merits, in accordance with the provisions of Royal Decree 1086/1989, of August 28, on university teaching staff remuneration (BOE No. 216, of September 9), amended by Royal Decrees 1949/1995, of December 1 (BOE No. 16, of January 18, 1996); 74/2000, dated 21 January (BOE no. 19, dated 22 January) and 1325/2002, dated 13 December (BOE no. 305, dated 21 December), or equivalent merits for those who do not have access to the assessment of these sections because they do not belong to the university teaching bodies. ii) Be in possession of three sections of research merits, in accordance with the provisions of Decree 140/2002, dated 7 October (BOC no. 139, dated 18 October) and have supervised a doctoral thesis, or have co-supervised two.
• Of the external members, there may not be more than one member belonging to the same university, or public or private center.
• Under no circumstances may the thesis directors or the tutors of the researcher in training be members of the tribunal.
• The president of the tribunal will be the member with the highest academic category and seniority in said category.
• Exceptionally, the main tribunal may be made up of more than two external members, provided that it is proven that there is funding to cover the travel and accommodation expenses of the additional external member.

The Doctoral School will verify that the proposed committee complies with the provisions of these Regulations and will inform the thesis director and the academic coordinator of the doctoral program, as well as the regular and alternate members of the committee, of its composition.

Once the tribunal has been appointed, the president will convene the public defence of the thesis, informing the Doctoral School of the day, time and place where it will take place, which in any case may not be before seven calendar days after the end of the thesis deposit period.

In the event of a justified resignation of one of the members of the committee, the Doctoral School will replace him/her with the corresponding substitute. In the event of the resignation of the president, this role will be taken on by the member of the committee with the highest academic category and seniority in said category.

Doctoral thesis defense

The doctoral thesis defense will take place in a public session during the academic calendar period.

The thesis defense will consist of the presentation by the doctoral candidate of the methodology used, the content and the conclusions of the thesis, making special mention of his or her original contributions.

The thesis defense, in addition to Spanish, may be done in any official language of the European Union, in which case it is guaranteed that the tribunal can evaluate it appropriately and upon a reasoned request addressed to the Doctoral School, which will determine whether the request is admissible.

The members of the jury must express their opinion on the thesis presented and may raise any questions and objections they consider appropriate, to which the doctoral candidate must respond. Likewise, the doctors present at the public event may raise questions and objections to the doctoral candidate at the time and in the manner indicated by the president of the jury, who will indicate the time established for this purpose.

The committee that evaluates the thesis will have the doctoral student's activity document, referred to in article 2.5 of the Official Doctoral Studies Regulations of the University of La Laguna (Resolution of January 17, 2013), with the training activities carried out by the doctoral student. This monitoring document will not give rise to a quantitative score, but it will constitute a qualitative evaluation instrument that will complement the evaluation of the doctoral thesis.

In accordance with the provisions of Art. 2 of Royal Decree 534/2013, which modifies the regulations for doctoral studies, the tribunal will issue a report and the overall grade awarded to the thesis according to the following scale: Fail, Pass, Notable and Outstanding. The tribunal may award the mention of cum laude if the overall grade is outstanding and a positive secret vote is cast unanimously.

To this end, the ULL will enable the necessary mechanisms for the final award of said mention, guaranteeing that the counting of votes for said award is carried out in a session different from that corresponding to the defence of the doctoral thesis.

In this regard, the Regulations for Official Doctoral Studies at the University of La Laguna (Resolution of 17 January 2013) establish that in a separate, closed-door session held on the same day as the defence of the thesis in question, and in the event of the circumstances described above, each member of the tribunal will issue, by secret vote, his or her opinion on whether the thesis presented deserves the mention of Cum Laude. The result of this vote will be recorded in a document that will be signed by all members of the tribunal and will not be made public. The tribunal may only propose that the thesis obtain the mention of Cum Laude if a positive secret vote is issued unanimously in this regard.

Once both certificates have been received by the Doctoral School, the director of the School will decide, in light of the proposal issued by the tribunal that has judged the doctoral thesis, on whether to award the Cum Laude mention to the doctoral thesis. In the event of a favourable decision to award the Cum Laude mention, this will be incorporated into the doctoral student's file. After the corresponding decision has been issued, it will be communicated to the interested party.

Thesis modality by compendium of publications

Those doctoral students who, prior to submitting their thesis and with the express authorization of their supervisor, have published or accepted for publication after their enrollment in the doctoral program, a minimum of three articles with a thematic unity in scientific journals that appear in the list of journals in the Journal Citations Reports or are indexed in prestigious databases such as Scopus, Latindex or similar, or are of special relevance to their area or related areas, and that are related to what is specified in their research plan, may opt to present their thesis in the form of a compilation of publications.

The presentation of a thesis under this modality must comply with the following: 1. It must include a general introduction in which the works are presented and the thematic unit is justified, as well as a global summary of the objectives of the research, the methodology applied, the results obtained, the discussion of these results and the final conclusions. 2. Between the introduction and the summary mentioned, or as annexes, there must be a complete copy of the works where the personal data of all the authors must necessarily appear, as well as the complete reference of the journal in which the works have been published or, where appropriate, the letter of acceptance. 3. At the time of depositing the thesis, the following documentation must be submitted to the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna:

• Authorization from the thesis director for presentation in this format.
• Document proving the impact index of the publications that make up the thesis or, failing that, the document that proves the relevance of the article within the corresponding branch of knowledge, such as IN-recs, DICE, positive evaluation by the FECYT.
• If any of the work presented has been carried out in collaboration with researchers other than the thesis supervisors, a document must be submitted in which the supervisor expressly declares that the essential part of the work included in the articles has been carried out by the author of the thesis. Likewise, a document must be included in which the other authors identified as responsible for the publication state their consent to the use of the corresponding articles for the presentation of the thesis under this modality.

4. Articles included in a thesis of this type may not be included as part of any other thesis. 5. Under no circumstances may the co-authors of the submitted works be proposed as members of the panel that will judge the thesis. The Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will keep a record of the articles submitted as support for doctoral theses in the compendium of publications category, for the purposes of the provisions of this article.
International Mention in the Doctorate Degree

The title of Doctor may include on its front the mention "International Doctor", provided that the following circumstances apply:

• During the training period required to obtain the doctorate, the doctoral candidate must have spent at least three months outside Spain at a prestigious higher education institution or research centre, studying or carrying out research work. The stay and activities must be endorsed by the director and authorised by the academic committee, and will be included in the doctoral candidate's activity document.
• Part of the doctoral thesis, at least the summary and conclusions, must be written and presented in one of the languages commonly used for scientific communication in the field of knowledge, other than any of the official languages in Spain. This rule will not apply when the stays, reports and experts come from a Spanish-speaking country.
• That the thesis has been reported by a minimum of two expert doctors belonging to a non-Spanish higher education institution or research institute.
• That at least one expert belonging to a non-Spanish higher education institution or research centre, with a doctorate degree, and other than the person responsible for the stay mentioned in section a), has been part of the thesis evaluation committee.

The thesis defense must be carried out at the Spanish university in which the doctoral student is enrolled, or, in the case of joint doctoral programs, at any of the participating universities or under the terms identified in the collaboration agreements.

Extraordinary Doctoral Awards

The University of La Laguna will annually announce, in accordance with the provisions of the corresponding regulations, extraordinary doctoral awards.