Formative program

Number of hours: 6

• Details and Planning: After enrollment in the doctoral program, the doctoral student will present his doctoral thesis plan in an oral presentation at the time indicated by the Academic Committee. All new doctoral students in the program will participate in this session, and all doctoral students in the program will attend. This session will serve both to contextualize the work to be developed, as well as for doctoral students and researchers in the program to get to know each other and begin to promote teamwork. These presentations will be coordinated to facilitate the attendance of part-time doctoral students. The language used will be English.
• Timetable: Annual. At the beginning of each academic year.
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity.
• Control procedures: A tribunal formed by three doctors and appointed by the Academic Committee of the Program from among the academic staff of the program will take minutes of the oral presentation.
• Mobility actions foreseen: Not foreseen

Number of hours: 4

• Details and Planning: Annually, the doctoral student will present the activities carried out during the year and the planning for the following year. The presentation will be made in the time and form established by the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Program, which will evaluate the Research Plan and the document of activities together with the reports to be issued by the tutor and the thesis supervisor. The doctoral student must present a document of 4 pages maximum, summarizing the progress of his research in the course and its most significant conclusions, and the planning for the next one. Likewise, he/she will present the defense of the research plan orally in a public exposition before the tribunal appointed for this purpose. The language used will be English.
• Timetable: Annual. End of each academic year.
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity
• Control procedures: A tribunal formed by three doctors and appointed by the Academic Committee of the Program from among the academic staff of the program will take minutes of the oral presentation.
• Mobility actions foreseen: Not foreseen

Number of hours: Minimum 20 hours, 480 in the case of International Mention.

• Detail and Planning: Doctoral students in this program, as current students have been doing, will carry out at least one research stay in another research center (preferably foreign) where they can carry out training activities and work in other research teams that contribute to improve their work in the doctoral thesis. It will be encouraged that the stays are abroad and that they have a minimum duration of 3 months to promote the mention of "International Doctorate".
• Time frame: Throughout the doctoral thesis, preferably in the 2nd and 3rd year in the case of full-time doctoral students, 4th or 5th year in the case of part-time students.
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity
  Control procedures: The student must provide the corresponding certification of the stay, a summary of the work carried out, signed by the person in charge at the remote institution, with an express indication of its relation to the thesis plan and/or a possible joint publication.
• Planned mobility actions: For the financing of the stays, the following channels will be used as far as possible: o Call for grants for doctoral mobility from the Ministry of Education. o Mobility programs of the University Teacher Training Program (FPU) o Mobility programs of the Research Staff Training Program (FPI) o Call for grants for doctoral mobility from the Ministry of Education. o Calls for student mobility of the University of Valladolid. In case of not having funding through any of these channels, funding will be obtained from research projects of the research groups.

Number of hours: Minimum 20

• Details and Planning: Attendance and participation in the research seminars held throughout the academic year in the research group (GIR) to which the research line of the doctoral thesis belongs. It is part of the ordinary management of these GIR the organization of these meetings, with a monthly periodicity, and a duration of 2 hours. In these seminars, the doctoral students will present their results and raise doubts to the rest of the members of the GIR. This activity has been carried out for the last 5 years and contributes to the creation of synergies among doctoral students, creation of new lines of research, discussion of results and training of the doctoral student for oral presentations at congresses and seminars. These seminars will be attended by doctoral students, postdoctoral students, technicians and professors of the doctoral program. These seminars will be coordinated to facilitate the attendance of part-time doctoral students.
• Timetable: 8 seminars per course
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity
• Control procedures: Attendance at 5 seminars per course (for full-time doctoral students) and 2 seminars per course (for part-time doctoral students) will be compulsory, for which a signature control sheet will be provided.
• Planned mobility actions: The following are not contemplated

Number of hours: Minimum 12 hours

• Details and Planning: Presentations of the standardized methods of physicochemical and instrumental analysis that are carried out within the research groups. These seminars will be given by the program faculty, as well as by the technicians in charge of projects and the staff technicians of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology. The seminars on molecular biology methods will be given by a postdoctoral contract expert in the field. These seminars will be coordinated to facilitate the attendance of part-time doctoral students.
  Timetable: 4 seminars per course
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity
• Control procedures: Attendance at 50% of these seminars will be compulsory, for which a signature control sheet will be passed, and will be bimonthly (it will have to be duly programmed in time with the internal follow-up seminars).
• Planned mobility actions: The following are not contemplated

Number of hours: Up to 90 hours

• Details and Planning: Seminars and short courses specifically addressed to the students of the program, usually organized by the Academic Committee (at the request of the researchers).
• Timetable: Seminars and courses can be attended throughout the three or five years, depending on whether the students are full-time or part-time, and it is recommended that this activity be more intense in the first years of the doctorate. It is proposed that the activity be distributed over time with numerous sessions of short duration. A session would last between 1 h and 8 h in a single day, or at most, in two consecutive days.
• Type of activity: Optional Activity
• Human resources for the development of the activity: For the realization of this training activity the Academic Commission of the Program will determine the necessary human resources. Although courses and seminars may be given by researchers participating in the program, it is expected that most of them will be given by invited external expert researchers. If the activity so requires, the participation of technical personnel from the research groups and even external technical experts may be necessary.
• Material/financial resources for the development of the activity: In general, the courses and seminars will be financed by the program. Whenever possible, the activities will be co-financed with economic resources from the program's research groups, since the teaching of courses and seminars by an external researcher may coincide with the researcher's work visits/stays for which the research groups with which he/she collaborates have specific financing.
• Control procedures: This activity will be evaluated and controlled by means of the certificate of attendance/use that each student must present, for its incorporation in the doctoral student's activities document. The thesis supervisor and tutor, through the control procedures they deem appropriate, will be the ones to evaluate the acquisition of competencies and the learning outcome.
• Planned mobility actions: The following are not contemplated

Number of hours: Up to 100 hours

• Detail and Planning: With the approval of the Tutor, the doctoral student may participate in courses, seminars or other research training activities that are developed at the University of Valladolid, or in other Universities or Institutions. An example of these courses are the BIOCEN courses of the ERASMUS Lifelong Learning Programme and the "High Pressure Technology in the Process and Chemical Industry" course of the EU SOCRATES Intensive Programme, in which the GIR of the PhD program participate annually. In addition to the University of Valladolid, the University of Trondelag (Norway), Aalborg (Denmark), Silesian (Poland) and TAMK (Finland) participate in the BIOCEN program. In addition, the Environmental Technology group will participate during the next 4 years in the COST WATER2020 action (Conceiving Wastewater Treatment in 2020-Energetic, Environmental and Economic challenges) in which 17 European countries are participating and whose activities include international specialist courses for PhD students of the groups and personnel of the companies participating in the action. The course "High Pressure Technology in the Process and Chemical Industry" of the EU SOCRATES Intensive Programme is organized by the EFCE Working Party on High Pressure Technology, and in addition to the University of Valladolid, 14 other European universities from Italy, UK, Germany, France, Slovenia, Austria or Czech Republic are participating. For more information, please consult the following address: http://www.efce.info/Working+Parties/High+Pressure+Technology/High+Pressure+Course.html Doctoral students will be facilitated to attend at least one of these courses during their training. These courses will be attended by both part-time and full-time doctoral students.
• Time frame: Throughout the entire training period, although preferably during the first year for full-time students or from the second year onwards for part-time students.
• Type of activity: Optional activity
• Control procedures: The doctoral student will have to present the Certificate of Attendance to the Academic Commission of the Doctoral Program, as a control procedure.
• Planned mobility actions: In order to finance the stays, the following channels will be used as far as possible: o Call for applications for
  • Grants for attendance to courses, congresses and scientific meetings relevant to the development of doctoral theses of the University of Valladolid.
  • European Grants for financing EU SOCRATES courses.

In case of not having funding through any of these channels, funding will be obtained from research projects of the research groups.

Number of hours: 150

• Details and Planning: It is intended that the doctoral student during his training period and before submitting the doctoral thesis has written and submitted at least one article to a scientific journal. The uniqueness of each research area (structure of the articles and writing style) makes it necessary for the research groups to complement the training provided to the doctoral students in the more transversal courses that can be organized by the Doctoral School of the UVa on this subject. Two 90-minute seminars per academic year are proposed to address and discuss the organization and analysis of results and the structure of scientific articles in each particular area of research included in the Doctoral Program. These seminars will serve to develop the capacities CA05 and CB14 and will be directed by the Ramón y Cajal and Juan de la Cierva researchers of the groups (currently the groups have one Juan de la Cierva researcher, 2 Ramón y Cajal researchers and two R&C researchers have been requested in the 2012 call). These seminars will be coordinated to facilitate the attendance of part-time doctoral students.
  Temporal Organization: Throughout the entire training period. Minimum 1 publication and 2 seminars
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity
• Other clarifications or comments: Except in situations of confidentiality agreements, patent protection and others that the Academic Committee may consider, all doctoral students in the program must disseminate research results by accrediting at least the acceptance of a scientific article in a specialized publication in their field of knowledge, book chapter, book or other type of knowledge dissemination activity in accordance with the standards of each line of research.
• Control procedures: The activities of preparation of communications for presentation at congresses or scientific meetings, or preparation of articles or other academic publications carried out by the doctoral student, will be certified by the thesis tutor, with an indication of the approximate time spent for this purpose. Each doctoral student must attend at least two of the seminars, for which a signature control sheet will be provided.
• Planned mobility actions: The following are not contemplated

Number of hours: minimum 10 hours

• Detail and Planning: With the approval of the Tutor, the attendance and participation of the doctoral student in national and international congresses and conferences in his/her field of specialization will be considered as a training activity. Either by attendance, given the interest of the subject matter of the event, or by active participation, through the presentation of papers, these activities are of special interest to introduce the doctoral student to the world of specialists and research approaches in their field. As far as possible, each year the PhD student will be encouraged to participate in at least one scientific event of this type by means of a paper. Oral communications will be encouraged. Throughout his doctoral thesis, the doctoral student should attend at least one of these international scientific congresses. The language will be the working language of the congress, which is often English.
• Timetable: Throughout the entire training period. Minimum one participation
• Type of activity: Compulsory activity
• Control procedures: The student must provide the corresponding certification of attendance and presentation of communication to the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Program.
• Planned mobility actions: In order to finance the stays, the following channels will be used as far as possible:
  • Call for Grants for attendance to courses, congresses and scientific meetings relevant to the development of doctoral theses of the University of Valladolid.
  • Other public/competitive grants

If funding is not available through any of these channels, funding will be obtained from research projects of the research groups.

Number of hours: up to 180 hours

• Details and Planning: With the approval of the Tutor, the doctoral student may participate in teaching tasks in accordance with the current regulations for Predoctoral Research Staff in Training (PIPF).
• Timetable: Throughout the entire training period.
• Type of activity: Optional Activity
• Human resources for the development of the activity: This training activity involves the members of the teaching team involved in the subjects to be taught.
• Material/economic resources for the development of the activity: The material and economic resources will be those necessary for the teaching of the subjects.
• Other clarifications or comments: The direction of the Department involved, in agreement with the thesis tutor/director if applicable, will indicate to the student the convenience of carrying out the teaching collaborations.
• Control procedures: The direction of the Department involved in each subject in which the doctoral student participates will make a report detailing his/her participation/performance for its incorporation in the document of activities of the doctoral student.
• Planned mobility actions: The following are not contemplated

Number of hours: up to 300 hours

• Details and Planning: Participation in some of the tasks of R+D+I projects, both publicly and privately funded. The doctoral student is part of the research team of the projects and also benefits from the possibilities of funding activities provided by their collaboration. Interaction with other members of the research team enhances the sharing and acquisition of knowledge, techniques and skills.
• Temporal Organization: It is estimated a collaboration of up to 100 h per year for full-time students and up to 60 h in the case of part-time students.
• Type of activity: Optional activity
• Human resources for the development of the activity: This training activity involves the members of the research team of one or more R+D+I projects.
• Material/economic resources for the development of the activity: The material and economic resources will be those necessary for the realization of the project.
• Other clarifications or comments: The thesis tutor/director will indicate to the student the convenience of collaborating in the different projects, it is therefore an optional activity.
• Control procedures: The principal investigator of each project in which the doctoral student participates will make a report detailing his/her participation/performance to be included in the doctoral student's activities document.
• Planned mobility actions: The mobility actions will be those required for the collaboration of the doctoral student in the project tasks: attendance at coordination meetings, participation in presentations of results, etc.

Number of hours: up to 40 hours

• Detail and Planning: Many of the research topics of the doctoral thesis are framed within R+D+i projects with business participation. With the approval of the Tutor, the doctoral student will be able to participate in the follow-up or information meetings organized with members of these companies, in order to learn first-hand and be integrated into the process of knowledge and technology transfer University-Company.
• Temporary Organization:
• Type of activity: Optional Activity
• Control procedures: The proposal and follow-up of this activity will be carried out by the tutor of the doctoral thesis, who will reflect it in the student's Activity Document, indicating: Topic, place and duration of the meeting.
• Planned mobility actions: If necessary, funding will be sought from research projects of the research groups.