FAQs

The UPV offers a total of 31 doctoral programs in the fields of Agrifood and Biotechnology, Architecture, Art, Science, Economics and Social Sciences, Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering and ICT.

In this link you can find the current offer of doctoral programs of this university structured by fields of knowledge.

The information offered for each of the programs is very extensive. By clicking on the program you are interested in, you will obtain general information about the program, as well as specific information about it.

It should be taken into account that all programs recommend preparing a research plan or thesis project proposal prior to applying for admission, as well as having already arranged, with one of the researchers assigned to the doctoral program, the direction of the thesis and/or tutoring of the candidate during his or her doctoral studies.

In case you do not have a director or tutor, you can find information about research lines and research groups in the section “Organization of the doctoral program”. Each research group lists the researchers assigned to it, and you can access the contact address of all of them.

The information included in the sections is also very important:

• “Program Access Information”
• “Development of the doctorate” – “Specific and Cross-curricular training activities.

The requirements that the applicant must meet to be admitted are regulated by the Royal Decree 99/2011. Please note that the information shown here is only a summary. If you have any questions please contact the Doctoral School.

You can find more details about the access requirements in the following link.

The pre-enrollment or access request will be resolved by the Academic Committee of the program being applied for.

An application may:

• To be admitted
• Being rejected
• To be admitted with Complementos Formativos

Training Complements are assigned when the Academic Committee that studies the application considers that the candidate has a training deficiency to develop the thesis. In these cases it is required that the candidate completes a number of subjects of a master’s degree related to the program. You can find more information about the admission with Complementary Training in this link.

The application for admission (pre-enrollment) to doctoral studies starts from this WEB SITE – Make a new pre-registration.

To complete the application you must provide the documentation listed in this link.

In addition to the related documentation, it is advisable to provide a research plan proposal (thesis project), being necessary to have agreed, before starting the application for admission, with one of the researchers assigned to the doctoral program, the direction of the thesis and/or tutoring of the candidate during his doctoral studies.

If any of the degrees you provide is from a non-Spanish university, you must consult with this link.

In case of degrees issued by states not belonging to the EHEA, the academic documents must be duly legalized. The deadline for submitting this documentation will be one year from the date of the first registration.

The regular deadline to apply for doctoral studies at the UPV (pre-registration period) is open from mid-June to mid-October.

In addition, most doctoral programs open a second term starting in November if they have vacancies.

You can check the exact dates at this link.

The pre-enrollment or access request will be resolved by the Academic Committee of the program being applied for.

An application may:

• To be admitted
• Being rejected
• To be admitted with Complementos Formativos

Training Complements are assigned when the Academic Committee that studies the application considers that the candidate has a training deficiency to develop the thesis. In these cases it is required that the candidate completes a number of subjects of a master’s degree related to the program. You can find more information about the admission with Complementary Training in this link.

Admission to a doctoral program is valid for two academic years. This means that the student can enroll in the same academic year in which he/she is admitted or in the following one.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that the enrollment is only formalized when the student is 100% sure that he/she wants to start the doctorate. If the completion of the thesis is conditioned to the obtaining of a pre-doctoral grant, the registration should not be formalized until this grant is obtained.

Although the citation for the management of this enrollment is done automatically at the time of admission (pre-enrollment) and the period offered is 10 days from admission (the general UPV), this period may be extended by requesting it to the Doctoral School through any channel.

Registration is done on-line through computer applications, starting from the personal page of INTRANET, once identified in the UPV systems as a student, and choosing the option Automatrícula from the Virtual Secretary’s Section.

Before enrolling, the candidate must bear in mind that the academic year begins in September and ends in July, regardless of the date on which the enrollment is formalized, so it is advisable to know the academic calendar of doctoral studies, as well as the structure of phases and development in the chosen program.

Royal Decree 99/2011

Article 11:

Doctoral students admitted to a doctoral program shall enroll annually.

Agreement of the Steering Committee of the Doctoral School of July 15, 2015.

Item 6:

The authorization of a temporary withdrawal requested after October 30 will not be grounds for reimbursement of tuition fees for the course in which it occurs.

Item 7:

Each academic year and until the defense of the doctoral thesis, doctoral students, both full-time and part-time, must register within the established period, for the concept of academic supervision as doctoral students. Without prejudice to the obligation to formalize the annual registration, the computation of the maximum period for the completion of the studies will not be interrupted even if the doctoral student has not registered. The obligation to enroll and the computation of the maximum period for the completion of studies shall not apply to doctoral students who are on leave of absence during the period of their leave. At the end of the period of leave, the doctoral student must register and resume the preparation of the thesis.

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Enrollment for the following academic year is automatically renewed during the second half of July.

Registration will NOT be automatically renewed in the following cases:

• The doctoral student has already defended the thesis in the current academic year.
• The defense of the thesis has already been announced (formal announcement by the president of the examining board) for September 30 of the following academic year.
• The doctoral student has assigned training complements that have not yet been passed. In this case, the student will be summoned to enroll in the second half of July of the academic year that is coming to an end.

The part-time enrollment regime is included, both in the national regulations, article 3 of the Royal Decree 99/2011as in points 3 and 5 of the institutional rules of permanence.

The application can be made at the time of applying for admission (pre-enrollment) or later, once enrollment has been formalized (through the student’s INTRANET, Virtual Secretary’s Office section, second column, applications, application for part-time enrollment).

Once the request has been approved by the Academic Committee of the program, the partial dedication will be maintained in future enrollments, unless otherwise requested.

The tuition fees for university degrees in the Valencian Community are established each year by the responsible body of the Generalitat Valenciana (autonomous government).

You have the details of the academic fees (public prices) for this academic year in this address.

The general tuition fees per academic year (from September 1 to July 31 of the following year) are those corresponding to the following items:

• Enrollment in academic tutoring doctorate regulated by Royal Decree 99/2011. All courses that the student remains enrolled.
• Opening of academic record for beginning studies in a center. Only the first year enrolled.
• Issuance, maintenance or updating of identity cards.

In case of assignment of training complements, the fee will depend on the number of leveling credits required and the area of knowledge in which the doctoral program is framed.

At present, and unlike what happens in Bachelor’s and Master’s studies, there are no national public scholarships to finance enrollment in doctoral studies.

There are so-called predoctoral contracts. These are employment contracts for the completion of the doctoral thesis and training within a research group of the Universitat Politècnica de València. These contracts are awarded in annual competitive calls, which are managed in each case by the institutions.

You can consult information related to pre-doctoral grants for the development of the doctorate in this link.

You can find information about the procedures carried out by the Doctoral School related to the beneficiaries of predoctoral grants in this address.

Current regulations set a maximum duration for doctoral studies. This duration depends mainly on the type of dedication (full-time or part-time), but other factors may also play a role.

In the following link you can find all the details about it.

As established in Article 11.6 of Royal Decree 99/2011, before the end of the first year, the doctoral student will prepare a research plan. This plan will include at least the methodology to be used and the objectives to be achieved, as well as the means and time planning to achieve them. This plan may be improved and detailed throughout their stay in the program and must be endorsed by the Director and the tutor, being advisable its management before the beginning of the annual evaluation process (June of the course enrolled).

The research plan must be uploaded in the computer tool “Thesis management” (Menu “Elaboration phase / Research plan request”. You will have to fill in different fields (title, background and current status, bibliography, hypothesis and objectives, methodology to be used, means to be used, time planning and usefulness of the research…).

Once approval has been requested, the plan will be reviewed by the thesis director and/or tutor. Once it has been approved by any of them, it will be studied and approved, if appropriate, by the Academic Committee of the doctoral program.

This management, like any other that is carried out through computer tools that start with a prior identification of the user, should be considered as assimilated to a documentary process. Approval of the research plan should not be requested if there are incorrect data, such as the absence or erroneous assignment of directors. In the case of incorrect data, corrections must be requested prior to the request for approval of the research plan, either from the Academic Committee responsible for the doctoral program being studied, or from the Doctoral School.

The doctoral regulations stipulate that all theses must undergo an annual evaluation of the progress of the research plan.

During the month of June, and independently of the enrollment date, the doctoral student will make an annual self-evaluation report of his/her research plan and experiences in the doctoral program.

This report will be reviewed by the thesis director and/or tutor, who will issue, during the first two weeks of July, an evaluation that must be taken into account by the CAPD. The director or tutor may ask the student to improve the report, for which the student will have 5 additional days to the deadlines indicated.

The CAPD will evaluate the student’s Activity Record: research plan and specific training activities, together with the reports issued by the tutor or director. A positive evaluation will be a prerequisite for continuing in the program.

In case of negative evaluation, which will be duly motivated, the doctoral student must be re-evaluated within six months (second half of December), for which purpose a new research report will be prepared, reviewed by the thesis supervisor and/or tutor (January). In the event of a new negative evaluation (February), the doctoral student will be disassociated from the program.

You can find more details about the process at this link.

According to the applicable regulations, doctoral training shall include, in addition to the completion of the doctoral thesis, the performance by the doctoral student of specific and cross-curricular training activities. Each of them will have a valuation in equivalent hours, in such a way that for the presentation of the doctoral thesis, in general, it will be an indispensable requirement have passed at least 600 hours of which at least 10 percent (60h) will correspond to cross-curricular training activities.

There is an agreement of the Steering Committee of the Doctoral School, dated July 15, 2015, on the application of conditions of permanence in doctoral studies.

The full text of this agreement is available at this link.

On the previous agreement, the UPV Governing Council approved in February 2016 the CONDITIONS OF PERMANENCE IN DOCTORAL STUDIES.

In order to carry out eventual changes in the assignment of thesis tutor/director, the doctoral student must communicate them in writing to the Academic Committee of the Program, with the consequent motivation, and the document must be signed by all those involved in the change(s): director/tutor who ceases, director/tutor who assumes the function again.

The Academic Committee is responsible for the acceptance/rejection of the proposed changes;

The initial title of the thesis is given when recording the thesis research plan.

Once the research plan has been accepted by the academic committee of the corresponding program, there will be two ways to propose changes to this title:

A.- When making the annual report on the progress of the thesis (in June).

B.- By uploading the first draft of the thesis (V1) before the proposal of external evaluators.

In both cases, the approval of the thesis director will be requested, and the committee will have the option of accepting or rejecting the proposal;

The doctoral studies permanence policy provides that a doctoral student may request his or her definitive withdrawal from the program, which means that he or she will definitively leave the program.

Such request shall be sent to the doctoral school in a document addressed to the Academic Committee of the doctoral program, signed by the students themselves and with the approval of the thesis supervisors.

Students who have voluntarily requested their definitive disengagement, may apply for admission to the same program or another, in the same way and under the same conditions as any other new student. In case of being admitted, it will be for the development of a new thesis, and in no case to give continuity to the abandoned thesis. The activities carried out previously will not be automatically registered in the new transcript.

The regulations foresee that doctoral students may carry out research stays in research centers outside the UPV. The suitability of the destination center must be assessed by the thesis supervisor.

Such stays must be authorized by the thesis supervisor and by the Academic Committee of the doctoral program, prior to the stay.

More detailed information can be found on this link.

En this link you will find information related to financial aid for the mobility of doctoral students.

Once the research stay has been completed, the student may request its recognition as a specific activity of his/her thesis.

You can find more information on this subject at this link.

The PhD degree from the UPV may include an International Mention.

You can obtain more information about the requirements at this link.

The PhD degree from the UPV may include an Industrial Doctorate Mention.

You can obtain more information about the requirements at this link.

The doctoral degree from the UPV may include a reference to its development in a Co-Tutoring regime.

You can check the requirements in this link.

Doctoral students from research centers outside the UPV have the opportunity to enjoy research stays at UPV.

Consult in this link more details on the matter.

Once the first draft of the thesis (V1) has been completed, an external evaluation process of the quality of the work must be carried out, the first step of which is an anti-plagiarism review process.

In order to initiate this process, it is required tTo have the minimum number of hours required by the doctoral program registered in the student’s academic transcript (activity record).

Step 1: The process starts when the student uploads the first draft of the thesis -V1- from Thesis management (Menu  Evaluation phase // Version 1 thesis). You can take advantage of this step to also request a change in the title of the thesis.

The thesis direction approves the draft of the thesis (V1) → If the directors are UPV, only the OK of one of them is required. If the directors are all external, the OK of all of them or the OK of the UPV tutor is required.

Step 2: With the approval of the thesis direction, the draft (V1) is automatically passed to the plagiarism detection platform (Turnitin). The platform returns a report indicating the % of plagiarism detected and the details of the plagiarism detected (usually takes about 1-3 hours).

Step 3: The doctoral student must justify the results obtained in the previous step (doctoral review report), through thesis management (Menu  Evaluation phase // Plagiarism review report):

In this step, there is the option to request resubmit a new draft V1. If requested, and authorized by your directors and CAPD, you will have the option to upload a new V1 file of the thesis to restart the process.

WARNING: if you check this option you are requesting permission to submit a new draft of the thesis. This action necessarily requires the authorization of the Academic Committee of the program and therefore interrupts the possibility of requesting review by external evaluators until the CAPD resolves (Step 5.2).

Step 4: Once the doctoral student has completed the justification report, the thesis directors may approve or reject it (the student must repeat the justification of results (back to step 3).

Step 5: With the approval of the directors:

5.1: If the student has NOT checked the option to resubmit a new V1 draft, CAPD can:

• Approve it by approving the proposal of external evaluators (you should not do anything additional).
• Reject the justification report, (student must repeat the justification → go back to step 3).
• Block the submission of the thesis if they have indications of a serious case of plagiarism.

Only two options will appear:

5.2: If the student HAS checked the option to resubmit a new draft V1, the CAPD must pronounce itself, and may not pass to the approval of the proposal of external evaluators. In this case the CAPD may:

• Accept the request to resubmit V1 ( → go back to step 1 ).
• Reject the justification report, (the student must repeat the justification → go back to step 3 and can uncheck the option to resubmit V1 if he/she had done so by mistake or if in the end it is decided not to authorize the change of V1).
• Block the submission of the thesis if they have indications of a serious case of plagiarism.

In this case, three options will appear:

Once the previous step of anti-plagiarism control is completed, the process of external evaluation of the thesis draft begins.

The draft of the thesis will be sent to a group of researchers external to UPV and experts in the subject of the thesis.

The initial proposal of professors who will review the thesis may come from the thesis director, although it will always be the responsibility of the Academic Committee to approve the final proposal, which may or may not coincide with the initial one.

You can consult the details of the process in this link.

The registration of the thesis version for its defense is called thesis deposit.

The deposit will be made once the external evaluation process has been completed and after the authorization of the thesis direction and the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Program.

In this link you will find detailed information on this management.

The thesis supervisor, together with the PhD student, may prepare an initial proposal of members of the examining board to evaluate the thesis defense. As in the case of external evaluators, the initial proposal must be approved by the CAPD, which in turn will make the formal proposal to the Doctoral School of the UPV, for its study and appointment. The proposal may be made in parallel to the proposal of external evaluators.

In this link you will find more detailed information on this action.

Article 13.3 of Royal Decree 99/2011 stipulates that the university must guarantee the publicity of the completed doctoral thesis, so that during the evaluation process, and prior to the defense, other doctors may submit comments on its content.

This requirement is guaranteed by a public exposure period of 10 calendar days during which other doctors may review the complete text of the doctoral thesis at the School’s facilities (prior accreditation), as well as, if they deem it appropriate, submit allegations through the general records of the University.

The period of public exposure begins on the day following the validation of the thesis deposit by the Doctoral School.

Once the public exposition period is over, the President of the defence committee may call for the defense of the thesis. This call must be made at least 10 days prior to the defense.

More detailed information can be found at this link.

The Doctoral School, once the thesis defense has been formally announced by the President of the Thesis Committee, will contact the members of the committee to arrange travel and accommodation.

In this WEBSITE you will find information on spending limits and amounts for each of the expense items.

From the day after the validation of the defense certificate by the Doctoral School, the new doctor will receive an e-mail with instructions to start the process of requesting his or her degree.

For graduates of the current study plan, all management is done through the personal INTRANET page of the interested party.

The amount of the fee to be applied for the issuance of the diploma can be consulted starting from this link.

The denomination of the degrees issued by the U.P.V. will be “Doctor by the Universitat Politècnica de València”, including the following parameters, among others:

• Qualification for access to doctoral studies.
• Academic Structure Responsible for the Doctoral Program (Department, School, Institute).
• Doctoral program completed.
• Qualification of the doctoral thesis (awarded by the examining board).
• Date of the defense of the doctoral thesis.
• Date of payment of doctoral degree application fees.

Article 11 of Royal Decree 1002/2010 of August 5, 2010, which regulates the issuance of official university degrees. You can consult the full text by clicking here.

From the day after the application for the PhD degree, the interested party may obtain an offical certificate that serves as proof of the PhD degree until the offical degree is issued. It is called the “supplementary certification” of his or her doctoral degree that can be obtained through his or her personal INTRANET page.

After 2 to 6 months from the date of application, the final degree (diploma) will be issued. The graduate will receive a notification informing him/her of its disposition.

In this link you can find information regarding the withdrawal of the final title (diploma).

Every year (between January and February) the call for the awarding of extraordinary doctoral thesis prizes is published.

Doctors who defended their doctoral thesis and were proposed for this distinction by the examining board are eligible to apply.

In this page you will be able to obtain information on the last call for entries, as well as the list of winners of previous calls.

In this link you will find information on the regulation of the procedure and application forms for the declaration of equivalence of foreign degrees to the academic degree of doctor at the Universitat Politècnica de València.