Request for Doctoral Thesis Deposit

§1. Request for Doctoral Thesis Deposit: 

As soon as the doctoral thesis is completed and approved by the supervisor, the doctoral student may request the deposit of their doctoral thesis.

§2. Processing: The deposit request will be processed through the DAD.

§3. Requirements for Accepting the Deposit Request: The academic committee of the program will accept the deposit request that meets the following requirements:

• Deadline: The deposit must be requested before the deadline stated in the doctoral student’s DAD, and the student must have a valid evaluation. If a student has a positive evaluation in the September-October 2023 call, once September 2024 begins, the evaluation will no longer be valid, and the student must wait for a new positive evaluation to deposit. To avoid these issues, the student can also anticipate their evaluation. If planning to deposit in September or October, the student could request a voluntary evaluation in the March-April 2024 call.
• Completion of at least one evaluation: To authorize the deposit of the doctoral thesis, the student must have completed at least one year and passed the first evaluation.
• Quantification of training activities: Along with the deposit request, a proposal for quantifying the hours of training activities completed must be uploaded to the DAD, detailing all activities performed. To authorize the deposit of the doctoral thesis, the student must have completed a minimum of 200 training hours. If the number of training activities is less, the student, with the supervisor’s approval, may request the academic committee to validate the remaining hours with any courses or seminars taken during the doctoral years, related to the program’s research lines.
• Publication of quality contributions: To authorize the deposit of the doctoral thesis, the student must have effectively published “quality contributions” that support the doctoral thesis and collectively reach at least one point. Publications must have been made after the date of the first enrollment. Publications must include a reference to the University of Málaga. Certificates of publications being in press are not accepted for the deposit.
• Format of the doctoral thesis:

o   Minimum contents: Introduction to the study topic, summary of the state of the art, objectives to be achieved, methodology, presentation of the research conducted, discussion of the results obtained (if applicable), conclusions, and referenced bibliography. It may include as many appendices as deemed appropriate.

o   Cover of each copy: Must include the doctoral thesis, title, author, director, doctoral program, Center (Faculty, School, or Doctoral School), University, and year.

o   After the cover of each copy, in paper and PDF: A declaration of authorship of the thesis, signed by the author, regarding their legal obligations on intellectual and industrial property and the originality of their work. Declaration model, Modelo de declaración

o   Spine: Must include the words “DOCTORAL THESIS,” the full name of the doctoral student, and the year. In the case of theses with more than one volume, the volume number must be clearly indicated.

o   Language: It will be written in Spanish or one of the usual languages for scientific communication in its field of knowledge. When the thesis is not written in Spanish, it must include a summary in Spanish of at least five thousand words.

§4. Proposal for the Tribunal and External Evaluators:

The composition of the thesis tribunal will meet the following requirements: a) It will have three regular members and three alternates, who will be doctors of any nationality, affiliated with universities or public or private higher education or research institutions, with accredited continuous research experience. This composition must adhere to the principle of balanced composition between men and women. b) Those who have co-authored the publications supporting the thesis cannot be part of the tribunal. Nor can those who have directed and supervised it, except in the case of theses presented under bilateral co-supervision agreements with foreign universities that allow this second possibility. In the case of theses aiming for an industrial mention, the person designated by the company cannot be part of the thesis evaluation tribunal. c) Only one regular member can be affiliated with the University of Málaga, who, if not presiding over the tribunal, will preferably act as secretary. One of the alternates must also be affiliated with the University of Málaga. d) If all members of the tribunal belong to university teaching bodies, it will be presided over by the one with the highest academic rank and, if ranks are equal, the most senior. The tribunal can also be presided over by a member of a higher education or research institution with equivalent merits, such as research professors, scientific researchers, and senior scientists of the CSIC or similar organizations. 2. University teaching staff can be part of doctoral thesis tribunals, even if they are on any form of leave or retired, understood to belong to the university and department to which they were last linked in active service. 3. Teaching staff on leave or special services can participate in thesis tribunals and, for the composition of the tribunal, will be considered affiliated with the entity or organization to which they are currently linked. 4. The six proposed members for the tribunal must meet at least one of the following two requirements: a) Have accredited research experience in the thesis topic they will evaluate, through research periods, participation in research projects, and/or relevant publications. b) Have previously supervised a doctoral thesis on the subject in the last five years. 5. When the defended thesis aims for the “International Mention,” at least one regular member of the tribunal and one alternate must belong to a foreign university or higher education or research institution.

• Curriculum of the Doctoral Thesis Tribunal Members (Word): Along with the tribunal, three external evaluators will also be proposed. The external evaluators: a) Will be doctors not affiliated with the University of Málaga and preferably belonging to public or private higher education institutions or non-Spanish research institutes. In theses aiming for the “International Mention,” all three will belong to foreign higher education institutions or research institutes and will not coincide with the person responsible for the stay carried out by the doctoral student. b) Will have accredited continuous research experience. c) External evaluators can be part of the tribunal evaluating the thesis unless they are co-authors of the contributions supporting the thesis. The postgraduate committee will designate two of the evaluators to issue reports.
• Curriculum of the Proposed External Evaluators (Word):

§5. External Evaluators of Theses: According to Article 73 of the Doctoral Studies Regulations of the University of Málaga, theses must have two reports on them, made by two external evaluators, designated by the Postgraduate Committee.

The evaluators cannot be in any situation that implies incompatibility or conflict of interest with the preparation of the thesis report, and cannot be, among others, co-authors of any of the publications supporting the thesis, nor relatives of the doctoral student.

The evaluators will be registered in the UMA’s telematic thesis management system, receiving an email from the address tesis@uma.es with a link to validate their email address.

Subsequently, they will receive another email with a link where they can download the thesis and attach the report in PDF format.

For the preparation of the report, we provide the following thesis evaluation report template (informe de evaluación de tesis.).

The reports must be completed within a month and contain a detailed review of the thesis, including comments and possible suggestions for improvement. The evaluator must give the doctoral student one of the following grades:

• Accept
• Accept with minor changes
• Accept with major changes
• Reject

The grade awarded will depend on the type of comments made by the evaluator and the time they consider the doctoral student needs to make the suggested changes: less than 1 month for minor changes, less than 3 months for major changes. If the evaluator considers that the doctoral student needs more than 3 months to incorporate the suggested changes, the evaluation must be negative (Reject).

This grade must be justified in the report, based on the comments made about the thesis work.

Once the reports are received, they can be viewed through the telematic thesis management system by the doctoral student, their supervisor, and the thesis director(s). These reports will accompany the documentation associated with the thesis defense throughout the process.

§6. Additional Documentation

Please note that in the case of theses by compendium, with international mention or industrial mention, the regulations require other documentation that can be seen in the sections dedicated to these types of theses.