In Chapter III, Articles 24 to 31, reproduced below, this regulation establishes the following:

Article 24.- Doctoral thesis.

1. The doctoral thesis will consist of an original research project prepared by the candidate in any field of knowledge. The thesis must equip the doctoral candidate for independent work in the field of R&D&I.

2. The thesis may be developed and, where appropriate, defended in the languages commonly used for scientific communication in its field of knowledge, ensuring that the judging panel is able to do so in the language of presentation.

3. Each doctoral program may establish its own requirements that its doctoral theses must meet in order to qualify for presentation.

Article 25.- Proposal and appointment of the thesis evaluation committee.

1. At the time of submitting the doctoral thesis, the academic committee of the doctoral program will submit to the Doctoral School a proposal of five experts in the subject matter to which the thesis refers, or in another subject that is similar to it, accompanied by their CVs, which will state the merits that qualify them to be part of the panel in charge of judging it.

2. The following shall be taken into account when designating the court:

a. It must be composed of three full members: a president, a secretary, and a member, as well as two alternates. Of the full members, one must belong to the University of La Laguna, and the other two must be external and, in all cases, must have civil service or contractual relationships with other universities or research organizations.

The substitutes will include one from the University of La Laguna and another from institutions outside the University of La Laguna. The first will fill in for the possible absence of a full member of the panel from the University of La Laguna, and the second will fill in for the absence of any of the other full members.

b. All members must hold a doctorate degree and have accredited research experience, as established by the doctoral program. At a minimum, members of the University of La Laguna (full and alternate) must meet the same requirements as those required to be a thesis supervisor at this university.

c. Of the external members, no more than one member may belong to the same university, or public or private center.

d. Under no circumstances may the thesis supervisors or the tutors of the researcher in training be members of the committee.

e. The president of the tribunal will be the member with the highest academic category and seniority in said category.

f. Exceptionally, the presiding panel may be composed of more than two external members, provided that funding is available to cover the travel and accommodation expenses of the additional external member.

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

4. Once the committee has been appointed, the president will convene the public defense of the thesis, informing the Doctoral School of the date, time, and place where it will take place. In any case, this may not take place before seven calendar days after the end of the thesis submission period.

5. In the event of justified resignation of any of the members of the tribunal, the Doctoral School will proceed to replace him/her with the corresponding substitute.

Should the president resign, this role will be fulfilled by the member of the tribunal with the highest academic category and seniority in said category.
Article 26.- Processing of the defense of the doctoral thesis.

1. After the completion of the thesis and with the approval of his/her supervisor(s), the doctoral student
It will be submitted to the academic committee of the corresponding doctoral program for processing by the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna, in the established format, accompanied by the corresponding summary in the form and format established by the Ministry for inclusion in the relevant databases.

2. The academic committee of the doctoral program will send two copies of the doctoral thesis, in the established format, to the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna to which the program is affiliated, and must include:

a. The corresponding authorization from the thesis director(s).

b. The report of the tutor assigned by the doctoral program, if different from the director.

c. The report stating the academic committee of the doctoral program's agreement to the public defense of the thesis and which must necessarily state that the requirements established in the doctoral program, where applicable, have been met in order to proceed with its defense.

d. The application form for the “International Doctor” designation, together with the corresponding documentation, if eligible.

3. The corresponding Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will certify, by means of a registry and seal, that the doctoral thesis meets the requirements established in these regulations for its deposit within a period of 15 school days, under the terms established in the academic calendar for each academic year, in the General Secretariat of the University of La Laguna. One copy will remain on deposit with that Secretariat, while the second copy will remain on deposit with the Doctoral School.

4. During the deposit period, which will be opened as a public information period, any doctor may make as many allegations and observations as he or she deems appropriate to the corresponding Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna, stating his or her agreement or disagreement with the public defense thereof, as well as suggestions for improvements to remedy any deficiencies, all with the aim of guaranteeing its quality.

5. The Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will ensure the publicity of this period of public information.

6. Once the public information period for the doctoral thesis has ended, the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will be responsible for authorizing, if appropriate, the defense of the doctoral thesis.

7. If any of the circumstances described in section 4 of this article arise during the public information period, the Doctoral School will notify the doctoral candidate and the thesis supervisor, as well as the academic committee of the corresponding doctoral program, of the circumstances. The students will have 10 working days to submit the appropriate objections to the Doctoral School. Based on the documentation submitted, the Postgraduate Studies Committee will decide whether or not the thesis defense is appropriate within a period of no more than one month, and will obtain, if deemed appropriate, a report from specialists. The Postgraduate Studies Committee of the University of La Laguna must provide the reasons for the rejection.

8. The defense must take place within a maximum of three months from the date of authorization. If the defense has not been completed by this deadline, the procedure must be restarted.

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

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

11. In exceptional circumstances determined by the program's academic committee, 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 above to ensure the non-publicity of these aspects.

Article 27.- Defense of the doctoral thesis.

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

2. The thesis defense will consist of the doctoral candidate presenting the methodology used, the content and conclusions of the thesis, with special mention of his or her original contributions.

3. The thesis defense, in addition to Spanish, may be conducted in any official language of the European Union. In this case, it is guaranteed that the committee can evaluate it appropriately and upon a reasoned request addressed to the Doctoral School, which will assess whether the request is appropriate.

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

5. The examining committee will have access to the doctoral student's activity report, referred to in Article 2.5 of these regulations, detailing the training activities carried out by the doctoral student. This monitoring document will not result in a quantitative score, but will constitute a qualitative assessment tool that complements the evaluation of the doctoral thesis.

6. The committee will issue a report and the overall grade awarded to the thesis according to the following scale: not suitable, pass, notable, and outstanding. The committee may award a cum laude distinction if the overall grade is outstanding and a unanimous secret vote is cast in favor of this distinction. The University will implement the necessary mechanisms for the final award of this distinction, ensuring that the counting of votes for this award takes place in a session separate from the one corresponding to the doctoral thesis defense.

7. After the public defense of the thesis and once it has been graded, in a separate, closed-door event on the same day as the defense of the thesis, if an outstanding grade has been awarded, each member of the committee will issue, by secret ballot, their opinion on whether the thesis presented deserves the mention of cum laude.

8. Once both transcripts have been received by the Doctoral School, the director of the School will decide, based on the proposal issued by the examining committee, whether to award the doctoral thesis with a Cum Laude distinction. If the decision is favorable to the award of a Cum Laude distinction, it will be added to the doctoral student's file.
After the corresponding resolution has been issued, it will be communicated to the interested party.

Following the publication of Royal Decree 534/2013, of July 13, which modifies the grading system for doctoral theses, as well as the procedure for granting the Cum Laude Mention, and until a specific modification of sections 6, 7 and 8 of article 27 of the Regulations for Official Doctoral Studies of the University of La Laguna is made by its Governing Council, transposing what was indicated in Royal Decree 99/2011, of January 28, in this area, the Rector of the University of La Laguna has issued a Resolution dated December 19 establishing the mechanism for granting the Cum Laude mention to doctoral theses that obtain the grade of outstanding, since the grading system, taking into account the higher hierarchical rank of the aforementioned Royal Decree, had been applied since its entry into force.

Article 28.- International Mention in the Doctorate degree.

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

a) During the training period required to obtain the doctoral degree, the doctoral student must have completed a minimum stay of three months outside of Spain at a prestigious higher education institution or research center, pursuing studies or conducting research. The stay and activities must be endorsed by the supervisor and authorized by the academic committee, and must be included in the doctoral student's activity report.

b) Part of the doctoral thesis, at least the abstract 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 of Spain. This rule will not apply when the internships, reports, and experts come from a Spanish-speaking country.

c) That the thesis has been reported by a minimum of two expert doctors belonging to a higher education institution or research institute
not Spanish.

d) That at least one expert belonging to a non-Spanish higher education institution or research center, 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.

2. The thesis defense must be carried out at the Spanish university where 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.

Article 29.- Thesis modality by compendium of publications.

1. 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 Journal Citations Reports list of journals 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 compendium of publications.

2. The presentation of a thesis under this modality must adhere to the following:

a. It must include a general introduction in which the work is presented and the thematic unit is justified, as well as a global summary of the research objectives, the methodology applied, the results obtained, the discussion of these results and the final conclusions.

b. Between the introduction and the summary mentioned above, or as annexes, there must be a complete copy of the works, which must necessarily include the personal data of all the authors, as well as the complete reference of the journal in which the works have been published or, where appropriate, the acceptance letter.

c. At the time of deposit of the thesis, the following documentation must be submitted to the Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna:

i. Authorization from the thesis director for presentation in this format.

ii. Document proving the impact index of the publications that make up the
thesis or, failing that, one that proves the relevance of the article within the corresponding branch of knowledge, such as IN-recs, DICE, positive evaluation of the FECYT.

iii. If any of the submitted works were carried out in collaboration with researchers other than the thesis supervisors, a document must be submitted in which the supervisor expressly declares that the substantial part of the work included in the articles was carried out by the thesis author. A document must also be provided in which the other authors identified as responsible for the publication state their consent to the use of the corresponding articles for the thesis presentation under this modality.

d. Articles that form part of a thesis of this type may not be included as part of any other thesis.

e. Under no circumstances may the co-authors of the submitted works be proposed as members of the tribunal that is to judge the thesis.

3. The Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will keep a record of the articles submitted as support for doctoral theses in the form of a compilation of publications, for the purposes of this article.

Article 30.- Joint supervision regime for doctoral theses.

Within the framework of doctoral studies, a joint supervision procedure for doctoral theses may be developed between the University of La Laguna and a university in another country. The aim is to create and develop scientific cooperation between research teams from both institutions and facilitate the mobility of doctoral students. The joint supervision procedure must meet the following requirements:

1. The modalities of 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.

2. Candidates preparing for a joint doctoral program will carry out their work under the supervision and responsibility of a thesis supervisor at each of the interested universities.

3. 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.

4. The doctoral student will register the thesis title at each of the two universities, and the agreement signed must stipulate that payment of the registration fees and issuance of the degree will be made at only one of them.

5. Thesis preparation time will be divided between the two universities. The stay at neither university will be less than nine months, and it may be completed in one sitting or over several periods.

6. The publication, exploitation, and protection of the results of the research conducted will be ensured by the two host institutions of the doctoral student in accordance with the specific procedures of each country.

7. The thesis will be subject to a single defense at either university. This provision must be included in a clause in the agreement signed by the two institutions.

8. The committee before which the thesis is to be defended will be appointed by mutual agreement between the two universities, and its composition will comply with the legislation in force at the university where the doctoral thesis is defended. The funding of the expenses arising from the committee's work will be determined in the specific agreement signed between the two universities.

9. 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.

10. The Doctoral School of the University of La Laguna will ensure compliance with the agreements established in the convention for doctoral theses developed under joint supervision.

Article 31.- Extraordinary Doctorate Awards.

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

Finally, it is necessary to indicate that the University of La Laguna has a "Document of commitment to the preparation of doctoral theses at the ULL" which is a kind of guide to good practices for the process of directing and carrying out a doctoral thesis that can be consulted in the following link.