What consist off?
Under international cotutelle, the doctoral student completes the thesis at two universities, with shared supervision, and presents it in a single defense, obtaining the doctoral degree at both institutions. In addition, the URV doctoratal certificate will include on the obverse the wording "Tesi en règim de cotutela amb la Universitat ..." (Thesis in cotutelle with the University...), indicating the name of the other university.
To be able to request an international thesis cotutelle, the student must be admitted to a doctoral program of the URV and a doctoral program of a foreign university. The thesis must be submitted to both universities and must be approved by both universities.
During the training period necessary to obtain the doctoral degree, the doctoral student must spend a minimum of six months at each of the universities to carry out research work. Stays and activities must be reflected in the joint doctorate agreement.
At the URV, the doctoral student must pay the registration fees for each academic year. Doctoral tuition includes thesis tutoring, administrative fees and compulsory insurance. It also includes the training supplements, in case they have to be taken. In the event that the studies that give you access to the doctorate are from a foreign university, you will also have to pay the academic career fee for university graduates in accordance with foreign education systems at the first registration.
It is necessary to take into account the duration of the doctoral studies at the two universities, as well as the monitoring and evaluation system of the work developed by the student during the process of preparing the doctoral thesis. At the URV, the student must pass the monitoring and evaluation procedure each year.
The thesis can be written and defended in any of the languages of the participating institutions in the cotutelle or in the usual languages of scientific communication in your field of knowledge.
The doctoral thesis under cotutelle may also opt for the mention of international thesis, as long as it meets the requirements established for this mention, as stated at the end of this web page.
The URV annually offers grants for doing the thesis in this modality. You can visit the Grants and awards website of the Doctorate School.
How is it established?
For each joint doctorate student, a specific agreement must be made between the two universities in favor of the student concerned. To start the management, the thesis supervisor of the URV must fill in the following form.
All the agreements of the Doctoral School are bilingual. In the case of using the agreement model of the other university, the version in Catalan must also be drawn up and signed.
It should be borne in mind that the duration of the procedures for managing the joint doctorate agreement may exceed 6 months, because the agreement must be adapted to the regulations of each of the universities and the agreement must be sent to the another university for the signatures.
In the joint doctorate agreement, among other information, it must be stated:
- The name and department of the thesis supervisor at each university.
- The doctoral program in which the doctoral thesis will be enrolled at each university.
- The staying rules in the doctoral program, according to the regulations of each university.
- The planned stays and research activities that the PhD student will carry out at each university. These research periods can be broken up during the doctoral student's training time.
- The university where the thesis will be defended.
- The composition of the tribunal, according to the regulations of the university in which the thesis will be defended.
- The language of writing the thesis.
- The language of the thesis defense.
- In the event that there are regulations of a higher rank than the URV that regulate joint doctorates, the agreements could be affected by them.
Associated documentation
Mention of international doctorate together with mention of international cotutelle
These mentions are applicable to doctoral theses titles defended and enrolled in doctoral programs regulated by Royal Decree 99/2011, of January 28, modified by Royal Decree 576/2023, of July 18, when the following events occur:
For students starting their PhD until academic year 2022-23 (included)
Regardless of the mention in international cotutelle, the PhD certificate may include the mention "International Doctorate" on its reverse provided the following circumstances are met:
- a) That, during the training period necessary to obtain the Doctor's degree, the doctoral student has completed a minimum stay of three months outside of Spain in a Higher Education institution or research center prestige, studying or carrying out research work. The stay and the activities must be endorsed by the Director and authorized by the Academic Commission, and will be included in the doctoral student's activities document.
- b) That part of the doctoral thesis, at least the summary and conclusions, have been written and presented in one of the usual languages of the scientific community in its field of knowledge, different from any of the official languages of Spain. This rule will not apply when the stays, reports and experts come from a Spanish-speaking country.
- c) That the thesis has been informed by a minimum of two experts Doctors belonging to a non-Spanish Higher Education institution or research institute.
- d) That at least one expert belonging to a non-Spanish Higher Education institution or research center, with the title of Doctor, and different from the person responsible for the stay mentioned in the first paragraph, has been part of the evaluation panel of the thesis.
For students starting their PhD from academic year 2023-24
The title of Doctor may include the mention "International doctorate" on its front, together with the mention of international joint doctorate, whenever the following circumstances are met:
- a) That, during the training period necessary to obtain the title of Doctor, the doctoral student has completed one or more stays for at least three months outside of Spain in one or more institutions of higher education or prestigious research centers in order to complement and strengthen their research training. In the case of several stays, at least one will have a minimum duration of one month. Stays and activities must be endorsed by the director and authorized by the Academic Commission and, once completed and validated by the host institution, will be included in the doctoral student's activities document . This stay cannot be made in any of the participating institutions in the signed international joint doctorate agreement.
- b) That part of the doctoral thesis, at least the summary and conclusions, have been written and defended in one of the usual languages for scientific communication in its field of study, different from any of the official languages in Spain. This rule is not applicable when the stays, reports and experts come from a Spanish-speaking country.
- c) That at least two of the experts who have drawn up a thesis report before its deposit belong to a non-Spanish higher education institution or research institute. These expert people cannot coincide with the researchers who received the PhD student and did tutoring or project management tasks at the host institution.
- d) That at least one expert belonging to a non-Spanish higher education institution or research center, with the title of Doctor, and different from the person responsible for the stay mentioned in paragraph a), has been part of the thesis evaluation board.