PhD Thesis

Introduction

This page summarizes the processes and regulations for PhD thesis in Software, Systems and Computing students, approved by the Programme Committee:

The Universidad Politécnica de Madrid has established the Doctoral Rules and the PhD Thesis Preparation and Assessment Regulations, based on Royal Decree 99/2011 (amended by other Royal Decrees).

Instructions for writing and presenting PhD theses

PhD theses shall be written and preferably defended in Spanish, although they may also be written in English. In any case, they must include an abstract in both Spanish and English (maximum 4000 characters). Additionally, if duly justified and reasoned, the UPM Doctorate International School may authorize, at the request of the PhD candidate and with the consent of the CADSSC, that theses be written and presented in a different language (Application for language other than Spanish or English). PhD theses that are written in neither Spanish nor English must include an additional summary in Spanish or English (minimum 20 pages).

Out of regard for non-Spanish-speaking academic staff sitting on the board, theses may be defended in a language other than Spanish provided that all the board members agree.

The theses must be submitted electronically (PDF) through THESIS.

Although there is certain liberty in the format, it is recommended that chapter titles be typed using capital letters and Arabic numerals, that sections and subsections include decimal ordering following each chapter, that pages be numbered using Arabic numbers placed at the bottom centre, and that references appear sorted by the author's last name and year.

Theses should contain: table of contents, abstract (in Spanish and English), and numbered chapters (introduction, related work, problem statement and objectives, proposed solution, results, conclusions, future lines of research and references).

A Word template and a PDF template is provided, so students can use them (first pages must strictly match the templates).

Theses may also be written as a compendium of publications. A thesis is written as a compendium of publications if it includes the content of some thesis author's publications (as-are, or with few changes). In this case, the theses should contain (more than 18,000 words of new content): table of contents, abstract (in Spanish and English), general introduction (related work, objectives, and hypothesis), methodology, compendium of at least three publications, general discussion (solution description, results analysis, conclusions, and future lines of research) and references. To be allowed to write the thesis as a compendium of publications, the thesis author must be the first author of three published papers (two of them may be merely accepted for publication, with a DOI) in journals listed on JCR listings at Q1 or Q2 positions, affiliated with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. When submitting the documentation for the thesis deposit, the request for thesis as a compendium of publications should also be submitted. The UPM website provides complete regulations for Theses as a compendium of publications.

PhD thesis confidentiality

All theses are public in accordance with the idea of Open Science and will therefore be published in the UPM digital archive.

Under exceptional circumstances, for example, when there are non-disclosure agreements with companies, or when there is a possibility that patents covering the thesis content may be created, the author and the supervisor may request confidentiality for the PhD thesis from the CADSSC while requesting the Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission by attaching the necessary documentary evidence in support of your application.

The EID may request any further reports that it requires and shall decide on the application within two months.

The aforesaid authorization may be withdrawn at a later date if the EID decides that the aforesaid circumstances no longer apply.

If confidentiality is approved, both the pre-defence panel of experts and the defence board members shall sign a non-disclosure agreement related to the contents of the thesis.

When depositing the thesis, the student must send a complete version of the thesis, along with another version without the confidential parts.

Upon completion of the confidentiality period established by the EID, the thesis shall be published in the University's open repository. If there is a need to maintain the confidentiality, one-year extensions may be requested.

Complete UPM regulations may be viewed at Thesis confidentiality procedure.

External expert reports

In order to deposit the thesis, the thesis must have a minimum of two reports issued by PhD experts in the thesis topic, external to the UPM, who may propose aspects for improvement. Depending on the content of these reports, the CADSSC will give the PhD student a period of time to respond and, if necessary, include the relevant modifications in the PhD thesis before it is deposited.

These experts may form part of the Board that assesses the thesis. Any expert who has joint publications with the PhD student will not be able to report on the thesis, nor will those who fall into any of the cases of abstention established in article 23 of Law 40/2015 on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector.

The supervisors of the thesis will send to the CADSSC by e-mail, at the time of requesting the Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission, who are the external experts they propose for the assessment, and they will send the documentation required for this proposal. the procedure to be followed by supervisors is as follows:

  1. Supervisors will propose two external experts with research experience in the area of the thesis, using the form Proposal of panel of external evaluators.
  2. Supervisors will provide a suitability report from each of the two experts, by means of the document Suitability report from each assessor of the thesis, which must be signed by each expert. This report must demonstrate accreditation of research experience (either by means of research activity recognised by the CNEAI or by the inclusion of comparable research merits), experience in the subject of the thesis, declaration of absence of conflict of interest and, in the case of theses with confidentiality, the commitment to maintain its confidentiality.

The CADSSC, in view of the research experience accredited by the experts, will decide on their suitability and, where appropriate, will appoint them, which will be communicated to the experts with the appropriate indications so that, within 20 working days of receipt, they issue a report on the quality of the thesis. To this end, the experts will receive the draft of the thesis and the document Thesis Evaluation Report, which they must fill in and sign (the signature of Spanish nationals must be with an official electronic signature; for foreigners, the use of an electronic signature officially recognised in their country is recommended).

Once the external reports have been received, and if none of them has an overall negative assessment, the CADSSC will give the PhD student a deadline to present the final version of the thesis, taking into account the recommendations of the experts, if any.

In the event of receiving an external report with a negative overall assessment, the deposit of the thesis may not be authorised.

Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission

The CADSSC must ensure the quality of the Doctoral theses and the proofreading of the final thesis document before its formal submission.

PhD candidates shall inform the CADSSC that they wish to proceed to Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission, with authorization from the PhD thesis supervisor or supervisors, and when they have fulfilled the following requirements:

  1. For students who have been admitted with the proviso of taking Bridge Courses, the student must have passed the required credits.
  2. All Programme competences must have been acquired by attending the Training Activities , or the student must have applied for and obtained recognition for them.
  3. PhD candidates have completed their research.
  4. PhD candidates have written a preliminary version of their thesis.
  5. PhD candidates have received a positive evaluation for the latest Anual report.
  6. PhD candidates must have published the thesis results (the students' affiliation must be "Universidad Politécnica de Madrid") in any of the following:
    • Highly reputed, specialized journals listed in JCR (Journal Citation Reports) classified on the Rank by Journal Impact Factor as Q1, Q2 or Q3.
    • CORE A or A* Conferences.
    • Conferences with SCIE rating A, A+, or A++.
    • Own-use patents, evidenced by means of a purchase agreement or licensing contract.

The CADSSC may establish additional requirements to ensure the quality of the publications.

Application for assessment prior to PhD thesis submission

The PhD candidate must apply for the assessment prior to PhD thesis submission by completing the following steps:

  • PhD students must use THESIS (section "Requests" / "Assessment prior to submission") to submit:
    1. A PDF file containing the PhD thesis, referencing the state of the art, scientific methodology, original contributions, conclusions, and references.
    2. Indicate whether the PhD thesis confidentiality has been approved.
    3. Provide the personal ID of the researcher profile on UPM's Portal Científico. This ID may be obtained by accessing the Portal Científico, typing the name of the student in the search box and selecting the entry that matches the student. Once selected, a new webpage will be obtained, whose URL will be similar to https://portalcientifico.upm.es/es/ipublic/researcher/999999. The student ID are the last 6 digits of this URL (999999 in the example). In addition, the Doctoral candidate must enter all the data on the scientific output of the PhD thesis through the Portal Científico.
    4. In the case of applying for the international doctorate mention, the certificates of the stay must have been submitted to the corresponding section of THESIS. If the application for a stay has been approved outside THESIS, all required documentation (International Doctor Distinction application, certification of stay, expert reports, experts' CVs...) must be sent by e-mail to the programme.
    5. In the case of having completed an Industrial Doctorate, this Mention must be applied for simultaneously through the corresponding THESIS section, attaching all the relevant documentation (report of the industrial link, copy of the employment contract...). If the application for a Industrial Doctorate has been approved outside THESIS, all required documentation (Industrial Doctor Distinction application, report on the relationship between the thesis and the industry, the employment contract...) must be sent by e-mail to the programme.
  • Thesis supervisors should use THESIS (section "Pending reports") to:
    1. Once the PhD student has submitted the application, thesis supervisors must approve it and provide a brief justified evaluation of the thesis. If the thesis has two supervisors, both of them must complete this step.
  • PhD students must submit by e-mail (doctorado.ssc@fi.upm.es):
    1. For students who have been admitted with the proviso of taking Bridge Courses, a copy of the student file showing that courses with the required number of credits have been passed.
    2. The updated Doctoral Student Activity Document, signed by the Doctoral student, the tutor and the thesis supervisors, where all the details of the publications derived from the thesis must be included.
    3. A PDF dossier with the details of the publications stemming from the PhD thesis. For each article, the dossier must contain:
      • The cover of the journal, conference proceedings, etc., in which the article was published.
      • The table of contents of the publication (listing the article related to the PhD thesis).
      • A copy of the pages of the above publication, including the full text of the article (a downloaded copy of the article, if it is an online publication). The manuscript submitted for publication by the Doctoral candidate shall only be acceptable if the paper has been accepted and not yet been published (in this case, the letter of acceptance must also be attached).
      • DOI. This may replace the previous elements.
      • Additional documents specifying the quality data supplied in the document listing the publication details (impact factor, paper acceptance rate, type of review, etc.). A screenshot of the quality index webpage is required.
      • A list of web addresses against which the submitted documents can be verified.
    4. If the thesis was completed under the Joint supervision procedure, all required documentation from the procedure.
  • The directors will send by e-mail to the PhD Programme (doctorado.ssc@fi.upm.es) the proposal of external evaluators (unless the corresponding reports have already been obtained, for example, in the case of a thesis with an international mention):
    1. They will propose two external experts with research experience in the area of the thesis, using the form Proposal of panel of external evaluators.
    2. They will provide a qualification report from each of the two experts, by means of the document Suitability report from each assessor of the thesis, which must be signed by each expert. This report must demonstrate accreditation of research experience (either by means of research activity recognised by the CNEAI or by the inclusion of comparable research merits), experience in the subject of the thesis, declaration of absence of conflict of interest and, in the case of theses with confidentiality, the commitment to maintain the confidentiality of the same.

Once all the documentation has been received, the CADSSC will evaluate the documentation and communicate the result of the Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission through THESIS within 30 days of receiving the complete and correct documentation.

At the same time, the CADSSC will assess the suitability of the experts and request the corresponding reports on the thesis.

Requirements for proceeding to PhD thesis defence

The CADSSC may authorize the PhD thesis to proceed to defence once the student and the thesis have met a series of requirements. These requirements have been established by the UPM's EID.

  1. The Research Plan from the last academic year has been presented and approved.
  2. The Doctoral student must have passed the Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission.
  3. The PhD candidate must have published the thesis results (the student's affiliation must be "Universidad Politécnica de Madrid") in any of the following:
    • Highly reputed, specialized journals listed in JCR (Journal Citation Reports Q1, Q2 or Q3).
    • CORE A or A* Conferences.
    • Conferences with SCIE rating A, A+, or A++.
    • Own-use patents, evidenced by means of a purchase agreement or licensing contract.
  4. All the information concerning PhD thesis results have been recorded via the UPM's Portal Científico.
  5. The student must have registered with Teseo and completed most of the thesis information on Teseo Record (the "Departamento" field should include "E.T.S. de Ingenieros Informáticos").
  6. All academic tuition fees have been paid.
  7. The PhD thesis defence enrolment fee has been paid.
  8. If the thesis opts for the International Mention, all the necessary documentation will already be submitted to THESIS.
  9. If the thesis opts for the Industrial Mention, it has already been approved by the EID Steering Committee.
  10. If the thesis opts for the Mention of international co-supervision, all the necessary documentation will have already been submitted.
  11. The thesis must have obtained two positive reports from external experts. In the event that these reports have suggested modifications to the thesis, the changes must have been made, which must be justified.

The CADSSC will not be able to authorize presentation of the PhD thesis if any of these requirements are not fulfilled.

With regards to the PhD candidate publications, the affiliation of the student must be "Universidad Politécnica de Madrid" (in Spanish, with no abbreviations). In addition, one publication cannot be used by several PhD candidates to fulfil the publication requirement.

Enrolling for PhD thesis defence

To obtain authorization from the CADSSC to proceed to the defence of their thesis, PhD candidates must enrol with the Postgraduate Office for Doctoral thesis defence (Tesis Doctoral); the students should sent a screenshot of THESIS showing the approval of the Assessment Prior to PhD thesis submission. To complete the enrolment, they must pay the enrolment fee and any outstanding annual academic supervision fees, including charges for the current academic year.

Enrolment must be paid to apply for the deposit. To speed up the process, credit card payments are recommended.

Proposing board members

A proposal must be made with seven doctors who hold accredited research experience and are specialized in the subject matter to which the thesis refers, or a related area (Board members proposal form).

This proposal must be submitted at the same time as the application for the Deposit of the Doctoral thesis, and must be accompanied by a justification of the suitability of the members proposed to constitute the PhD thesis examination board, by means of the corresponding Suitability Report of each member signed by each of them. The acceptance of the members proposed to form part of the board must also be accredited by means of the document Acceptance as a member of the board. The secretary of the examining board must belong to the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

In the event that PhD theses are subject to confidentiality clauses, all proposed board members must sign a statement binding them to non-disclosure of the content.

No more than two members from the same higher education institution or organization shall be eligible to sit on a thesis examination board (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Instituto IMDEA Software, CSIC and Inria Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée are considered as the same institution). Student's supervisors or tutor cannot belong to the examination board. A member that meets any of the criteria for abstention established in article 23 of Act 40/2015 shall not be eligible to sit on a board.

The external experts who draw up the thesis reports may form part of the examining board. Higher education academic staff shall be eligible to sit on PhD thesis boards even if they are on leave, retired, or on special services or secondment, in which case they are considered to be members of the higher education institution where they are serving at the time. Retired faculty members shall be considered as members of the higher education institution at which they were serving before retirement.

The UPM will cover the travel expenses of the board members who are resident in Spain. Therefore, it will not cover the travel expenses from abroad of any of the board members, except if the PhD student opts for the International Doctor distinction, in which case it will cover the travel expenses from abroad of only one member of the board.

If the information submitted is considered incomplete, the EID may request further particulars to assess the qualifications of the proposed candidates.

Depositing PhD theses

Application for the PhD thesis deposit, including the correct completion of all required documentation and meeting all required formalities for thesis defence, must be filed at least 15 days in advance with regard to the student's PhD Programme deadline.

Once the student has met all the requirements for proceeding to PhD thesis defence, the application can be filed by following the steps below:

  1. The PhD student must submit the following documentation to the PhD Programme (doctorado.ssc@fi.upm.es) by email:
    1. A document detailing and justifying the changes made to the Thesis together with the modified Thesis document, in the event of having obtained comments from external experts on the Thesis that were to be included in the Thesis document. Otherwise, a document explaining that no changes have been proposed by the experts. The document must be signed electronically by the PhD student and the thesis supervisors.
    2. The updated Doctoral Student Activity Document, signed by the Doctoral student, the tutor and the thesis supervisors, which must contain all the details of the publications derived from the thesis, together with all other relevant information.
    3. An updated PDF dossier with all the publications concerning PhD thesis results (using the format specified in the Assessment prior to PhD thesis submission section).
    4. The Board Proposal, including the letters of acceptance and the suitability report of each member.
    5. Should the thesis is written as a Compendium of Publications and fulfilling the requirements, the request for submitting the thesis as a compendium of publications.
    6. Should the defence be on-line and all the board members agree to on-line thesis defence, the Application for defence of the thesis by videoconference.
  2. The PhD student must apply for deposit by using THESIS (section "Requests" / "Thesis deposit") by completing the following steps:
    1. Upload the digital version of the PhD thesis (PDF), along with supplementary material (.zip), if applicable.
    2. In the event that the thesis is subject to confidentiality clauses, upload the digital version of the thesis (in the section “Thesis subject to confidentiality agreement”) along with the version of the thesis that does not include confidential parts (in the section “Sample of the thesis for presentation”).
    3. Upload a summary of the PhD thesis in both Spanish and English (max. 4000 characters in each language).
    4. Check if applying for International or Industrial Doctor Distinction, or if the thesis has been conducted under the Joint supervision procedure.
  3. PhD thesis supervisors must authorize deposit by using THESIS (section "Pending reports"):
    1. Once the PhD student has submitted the application, thesis supervisors must authorize the deposit and defence and provide a brief justified evaluation of the thesis. If the thesis has two supervisors, both of them must complete this step.

The CADSSC has a period of 10 days to accept the deposit of the Doctoral thesis once all the correct and complete documentation has been received, including the external experts' reports. If the external experts' reports contain suggestions for improvement, they must be reflected in the thesis document and, for this purpose, the PhD student will have a deadline established by the CADSSC. If there is any negative report from the external experts, the deposit will be denied. If any defects are detected in the documentation submitted, the PhD student will be notified so that they can be corrected and the deposit process can be restarted.

Doctoral theses must remain on deposit (public exhibition) for 15 days from the day following the acceptance of their deposit by the EID. The International Doctoral School of the UPM, through the website of theses deposited at the UPM, will disseminate the theses that are in deposit at any given time. The Vice-Rector's Office responsible for Doctoral Studies allows any doctor, duly accredited, to examine the deposited theses in their entirety and, if appropriate, to send in writing, in free format, to the CADSSC any observations they deem appropriate, until the last day of deposit.

If observations are made, in light of their content, the Programme shall make a written statement to the UPM's International Doctorate School with its opinion regarding whether the process must continue or be stopped. To do so, it has a 7-day period starting when the deposit period ends.

Authorization to proceed to PhD thesis defence

If no comments have been made by the end of the deposit period, or if comments made have been addressed, the next meeting of the Doctoral Area Committee of theEID must decide whether to authorize the thesis to proceed to defence.

The decision shall be reported to the PhD candidate and the thesis supervisors within one week. If the thesis is not authorized to proceed to defence, the grounds and reasons for this decision must be specified.

The International Doctoral School of the UPM's decisions shall be considered firm and final and concludes the administrative procedure.

Appointment of the examination board

At the same time that the decision authorizing the PhD thesis to proceed to defence is notified, the Doctoral Area Committee of the EID shall approve the board that is to examine the thesis, considering the proposal submitted by the PhD Programme. The board shall be composed of five regular members and two substitute members. The Doctoral Area Committee of the EID shall appoint two of the board members as chair and secretary of the board.

The PhD Programme shall be notified of the appointment of the board so that it may forward notification of appointment and a copy of the thesis to each member. The PhD Programme must also notify the PhD candidate and thesis supervisors of the board's appointment within one week.

In the event of resignation, on justified grounds, of a regular member of the board, the chair shall proceed to appoint one of the substitute members. If the examining board chair must be unexpectedly substituted, the PhD Programme shall propose one of the members sitting on the board to stand in. In any case, the Doctoral Area Committee of the EID of the UPM must be notified of the substitution as soon as possible.

The thesis must be defended no later than three months after the board is appointed. Otherwise, the proposal of board members must be resubmitted to the EID of the UPM.

Defending and evaluating PhD theses

PhD thesis defence proceedings

Theses shall be defended at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Informáticos of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Notice of the defence proceedings shall be served by the chair and notified by the secretary to the board members with sufficient advance notice (at least 10 in advance). The thesis must be defended no later than three months after the board is appointed.

Once notice of the proceedings has been served, the chair of the board shall establish the proper substitution procedures. If any of the members fail to appear on the date set for the public defence and presentation proceedings, the substitutes shall join the board. If this is not possible, the chair shall, after deliberation with the other members and the chair of the CADSSC, decide whether the defence proceedings should proceed. For the defence to proceed, at least four members must be present. If it is decided to suspend the proceedings, another date shall be set for the defence, agreed upon by the other members of the board and the PhD candidate. Any changes to the board must be notified to the Doctoral Area Committee of the EID of the UPM as soon as possible.

If any member is prevented by an act of God from attending the defence proceedings but remote access (audio or video conferencing) is an option, the board's chair has the authority to allow the member to attend remotely under the same conditions as the members present, and to participate in the defence proceedings and subsequent deliberations.

The PhD thesis shall be evaluated at the defence proceedings. These proceedings shall take place in a public hearing and shall consist of the presentation and defence of the research work developed by the PhD candidate before the members of the board.

The board members must express their opinion and shall ask the PhD candidate as many questions as they see fit. Any PhD holders present at the public hearing shall be entitled to ask questions at the time and in the manner stated by the chair of the board.

Evaluating theses

At the end of the defence and discussion of the PhD thesis, each board member shall write an appraisal of the thesis (Thesis appraisal form).

The examining board will have at its disposal the reports of the external experts, as well as, where appropriate, the student's report with the reply to the suggestions for improvement. They will also have the Doctoral student Activity Document which includes the student’s Training Activities, Seminars, publications... This document is designed for monitoring purposes and shall not provide a quantitative score. It shall, however, serve as a qualitative evaluation mechanism to supplement the examination of PhD theses.

The examining board shall issue a report and the overall grade awarded to the thesis on the following scale: "rejected," "approved," "very good" and "excellent". The examining board may award "cum laude" distinction if the overall grade is "excellent" and the result of the secret ballot is unanimously in favor.

Each board member shall issue a secret vote whether to award the "cum laude" distinction. The CADSSC shall then tally the votes and notify the result to the candidate.

Archiving PhD theses in digital format

After PhD theses have been approved, the University shall be responsible for digitally archiving and electronically forwarding a copy of the respective thesis and any necessary supplementary information to the ministry responsible for PhD Programmes for the record.

Any PhD theses subject to non-disclosure clauses shall be published in the UPM's open repository once the protection or knowledge-transfer process has come to an end, or when the PhD candidate duly informs the UPM.

Applying for PhD degree certificates

Once the public thesis defence and presentation proceedings are complete, the PhD thesis has been approved and the "cum laude" secret votes has been counted, PhD candidates shall be eligible to apply to the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Informáticos Postgraduate Office for their PhD degree certificate; to this end, they must pay the respective fees.

While waiting for the definitive PhD degree certificate and 30 days after paying the fees, the student may request a substitute certificate from the UPM Rectorate's General Secretary.

Calculating deadlines

The periods established in these regulations shall be calculated as calendar days, not including the period from 1 to 31 August or holidays.