PRINCIPLES FOR ENROLLING PHD STUDENTS IN THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The University accepts two types of PhD students:
- A limited number of state supported positions are available on a competitive basis each year. The successful candidates will be granted with a modest stipend and social security for four years, provided that the studies progress without major drawbacks.
- Positions opened by the research grpoup's own resources. No formal limits.
The enrollment into a state supported program has two steps. First, potential supervisors write a concise PhD research plan. These will be evaluated and ranked by a commission appointed by the dean. The ranked PhD projects will be made public on the Faculty's web page. Second, qualifying PhD student candidates are welcomed to apply for a position at a successfully ranked PhD project. The decisions will be made by a committee appointed by the dean. Thereafter a contract will be signed and the enrollment will be in force.
Approved by the council of the Faculty of Science and Technology on 13 December 2018
Principles for allocating doctoral student places financed from state activity support
(formerly state-funded student places) in the Faculty of Science and Technology in 2019
1. Institutes are guaranteed doctoral student places financed from state activity support to the extent of 75% of the average admission over the previous three years (FY – 7, KT – 8, MR – 8, OM – 15, MI – 2, TI – 9, AT – 11, MS – 3, TO – 2).
2. The remaining student places financed from state activity support are allocated on the basis of general competition.
Competitions in the first period of admission (1 February - 1 March 2019)
The first round of competitions is organised in an institute. Each institute decides on their own how many projects they allocate on account of their guaranteed student places. Institutes must make their decision by Christmas, because according to the Rector’s directive regarding the schedule of admission to doctoral studies, the dean will announce by 31 December the admission numbers and the applications for the admission period in February – for projects which will get a guaranteed student place in the institute. Institutes decide whether to show the name of the doctoral applicant in an application for the allocation of a guaranteed student place (hereinafter ‘application’) or not. The applications with review(s) from the institute will be submitted to the dean on 24 December at the latest.
Competitions in the second period of admission (1 May - 15 June 2019)
1. The competition is announced immediately after these principles and the student places guaranteed for institutes are approved by the council of the Faculty of Science and Technology.
2. Applications (in English) are submitted to the institutes electronically. Institutes forward the submitted applications to the Dean’s Office to Virge Anso by 26 February at 9:00. The Dean’s Office verifies compliance with formal requirements and non-compliant projects are disqualified. The institutes decide whether the name of the doctoral applicant must be shown in an application for an institute’s student place. Projects without the doctoral applicant’s name may also be submitted to the faculty competition. In this case, the supervisor must announce the name of the doctoral applicant by 1 May. Projects without the name of the applicant are placed on a reserve list, which is announced (opened in the admissions information system SAIS) only after all applications with applicants’ names have been exhausted. One applicant must not be involved in several projects.
3. Institutes review the applications (at least one expert assessment per application, use of the form in Annex 2 is recommended), and assign the applications to the guaranteed student places. The remaining projects will be submitted to the faculty-wide competition. All applications (incl. those approved in the institute) and their reviews are submitted to the competition organising committee by 12 March. If the institute’s ranking does not correspond to the ranking of the reviews, the differences must be explained. The committee reserves the right to ask for additional information about the allocation of doctoral student places within the institute and, if necessary, amend it. All members of the committee assess all the applications submitted to the general competition. The committee makes a decision regarding the allocation of doctoral student places by 26 March. The council of the Faculty of Science and Technology approves the allocation of doctoral student places and the supervisors at its meeting
on 11 April. After that, supervisors cannot be changed until the end of the admission period.
Competitions in the third (10 - 30 September 2019) and fourth (10 - 30 November 2019) period of admission
In the third and fourth admission period the dean may, if there are vacant doctoral student places, organise new competition rounds to which applications from the previous periods and completely new projects can be submitted. The dean makes a decision regarding the announcement of the third and the fourth competition no later than three weeks before the beginning of the admission period.
Doctoral thesis project
Upon the assessment of applications, the following is taken into consideration (therefore, must be included in the application):
1. Initial title of the doctoral thesis
2. Doctoral applicant. During internal assessment, institutes may decide not to assess whether the name of the doctoral applicant is presented. This clause is applied within the institute according to an internal agreement. Applications without the doctoral applicant’s name may also be submitted to the faculty competition. In this case, the supervisor must announce the name of the doctoral applicant by 1 May. Projects without the applicant’s name are placed on a reserve list, which is announced (opened in the admissions information system SAIS) only after all applications with applicant’s name have been exhausted. One applicant must not be involved in several projects.
3. Curriculum, supervisor and research group in which the doctoral thesis is conducted – present the names (show doctoral students separately). This should provide an overview of the group’s capacity to conduct research and assist the doctoral student towards the defence of dissertation. It is recommended for supervisors to include in the application the total number of their doctoral students who have defended their theses outside UT. Supervisors also present the number of their publications in the last five years (2014–2018), the number of citations and h-index (with reference to when and which database the data were taken from). If there are more supervisors than one, the application should state why the supervisors are necessary, i.e. in case of joint supervision, the function of each supervisor should be explained.
4. Availability of resources required for work – rooms, equipment, finances. Show the material resources at the disposal of the work group, and required for the specific doctoral thesis. List other equipment, which supports the doctoral thesis, and access to equipment of the Faculty of Science and Technology and other research institutions, which might be necessary/useful. Definitely list the projects (FP7, SF, PUT, IUT, Interreg and other EU projects, implementing agreements) which are intended for covering the costs of the doctoral thesis. The start and end, scope and number of doctoral students working on the project must be noted for each project. Show the supervisor’s role in the project (holder, principal investigator, or investigator). Please ensure the availability of sufficient funds.
5. Project of the doctoral thesis, its innovativeness and importance to the development of the field of research (the project and description of innovativeness must not exceed 4000 characters including spaces, references not included) – the project and its feasibility by the doctoral student are assessed. The project should include a hypothesis (posing a problem) and the planned solution (which methods will be used to achieve the goal), and also articles to be published (as subtopics). As the assessors are from a wide range of specialisations, the project should be written in a way that is understandable for all assessors.
6. A summary of the doctoral thesis project to be published on the website. Summaries are not assessed.
The application must be prepared in accordance with the attached form (Annex 1) in English.
For the supervisor and also the work group, the efficiency in supervising doctoral theses and the number of students supervised is taken into consideration during assessment.
The efficiency of the last five years is calculated based on the number of supervised students admitted to doctoral studies in 2010–2014: the number of defences is multiplied by the percentage of admitted students who have defended their thesis. If there is less than one defence (joint supervision), the number of defences is deemed to be one. The so-called effective year of admission of doctoral students who were/are on academic leave shifts in proportion to the time on academic leave. Doctoral students who were admitted later but have already defended their theses are also taken into account. Efficiency is calculated as of 1 January. In case of imperative reasons (death of doctoral student or significant loss of capacity for work), the supervisor has the right to request the respective programme director not to consider such doctoral student in efficency calculations. The programme director submits the reasoned decision to the dean who approves or rejects it.
For example, if during the aforementioned period the supervisor has supervised four doctoral students and one of them has defended their thesis, the efficiency is 0.25, and in the case of two defended theses, efficiency is 1. If the supervisor has (jointly) supervised one successful doctoral student, the efficiency is 1.
For those who have not supervised doctoral students before (or the effective year of admission of the supervised students is not within the period 2010–2014), the efficiency is 1 (corresponds to the successful supervision of one doctoral student).
The following limitations are taken into account when allocating student places financed from state activity support:
An employee whose volume of research publications within the last five years corresponds to the volume of at least one doctoral thesis may supervise up to three doctoral students, and an employee whose volume of research publications in the last five years corresponds to the volume of at least three doctoral theses may supervise up to five doctoral students, and a successful supervisor (whose efficiency in the last five years exceeds the average of the faculty three times) may supervise an unlimited number of doctoral students. On the basis of a reasoned request, the committee has the right to make exceptions in this procedure. The number of doctoral students is counted as of 1 September, i.e. fourth-year students can be “replaced”. Doctoral students in places funded from state activity support and those not financed from state activity support, both in the curricula of the Faculty of Science and Technology as well as other faculties, are taken into account.