Resolution adopted by the Permanent Commission of the Steering Committee of the Doctoral School on July 17, 2024
In compliance with the provisions of RD99/2011, Article 13, the Regulations for Doctoral Studies at the UPV, approved by the Governing Council on February 1, 2024, establishes in its Article 13 the process of external evaluation of the doctoral thesis, and in its specific point that “The Academic Committee of the program, … will send to the Doctoral School of the university, for its study and designation, a proposal of two external evaluators, together with two substitutes, all of whom will be doctors with accredited research experience and recognized specialists in the subject of the thesis. Doctors who are members of the Universidad Politècnica de València, or of other research centers that may be related to the realization or development of the corresponding doctoral thesis, will not be considered for these purposes. The Steering Committee of the Doctoral School will establish the additional requirements to be met by these external evaluators.“
On the other hand, the RD 99/2011 establishes in its article 14 the requirements to be met by the Defence Committee that evaluates the doctoral thesis, specifying, among other things that “…shall consist of a majority of members external to the program and to the university where the thesis is defended”.This is developed in Article 15 of the UPV Doctoral Studies Regulations.
For the purpose of proposing external evaluators and defence committee members, we will consider them as “external” when they are part of institutions other than those to which the director belong (or co-directors).
As stated in Article 15 of the Regulations for Doctoral Studies at the UPV, in the case of theses under co-tutelle agreements and when necessary to comply with the defence requirements established in the corresponding agreement, the Doctoral School may authorize the participation of professors from the partner university as external evaluators or as members of the defence committee .
In addition to the non-membership of the evaluators and external members of the panel to the UPV or collaborating institutions, they must comply with the following requirements:
- Be doctors with accredited research experience that have not collaborated on a regular basis with the research team where the thesis has been carried out in the last 3 years, since this collaboration implies the establishment of links with the doctoral student that could compromise the objectivity of the evaluation. Collaboration is understood as:
- Have joint publications or patents in the last 3 years.
- Sharing research funds or projects in the last 3 years.
- Share other economic or scientific-technological activities in the last 3 years.
It will be admitted that, for the formation of the defence committee, and at most, one of its members may collaborate with the direction of the thesis in the aforementioned period of 3 years, regardless of whether it is the UPV member or an external member.
In no case may they collaborate with the doctoral student.
Other aspects to avoid for proposals of evaluators or tribunal members will be:
- The proposal of relatives of the doctoral candidate or director(s).
- Proposed friendship or enmity with the doctoral candidate or director(s)
- The proposal of evaluators or tribunal members who, even if they meet the above conditions, belong to the same research group or to the same institution (e.g. University, Institute, etc.).
These criteria will be strictly applied in the case of the evaluation prior to the presentation of the thesis and may be relaxed for the members of the tribunal, when justified.