Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Tourism and Leisure - Training activities

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Cross-disciplinary training activities

The URV offers a range of cross-disciplinary training activities that doctoral students can choose to complement their scientific training.

These activities are common to all doctoral programmes. They broaden the knowledge of students, fostering generic skills and interdisciplinary relations between them.

See the cross-disciplinary training activities for the current academic year

Specific training activities

These will be defined in the Doctoral Activity Document for each doctoral student according to the research line and the thesis supervisor, the work plan and the student's background previous to enrolment for the doctoral programme. The activities include training activities (generic or specific) that give students the competencies and skills specific to the doctoral programme. These complementary activities can account for up to 20% of the training time of the students, depending on their profile on admission.

Prior to the defence of the thesis, doctoral students must make at least one oral or written presentation in an important medium of dissemination of the area of knowledge of the programme. This includes oral or written presentation at scientific conferences, acceptance for publication or publication of articles in specialised journals (ISI or equivalent), book chapters, books or other activities of knowledge dissemination in accordance with the standards of each line of research, or submission for register of patents related to the research topic. However, the peculiarities of the discipline and the standards of the research lines within which the theses are prepared will be taken into account.

Mobility is a compulsory educational activity for doctoral students at the URV. Each student will select and programme the conference or conferences that they should attend according to their needs and under the guidance of their tutor and/or supervisor.

The doctoral programme organises an annual International Seminar at which researchers from inside and outside the University may give presentations. For each seminar, structural exercises of analysis and synthesis will be scheduled and students will draw up a report on them to strengthen their critical capacity and writing skills. The aim of the seminars is to train students for scientific research by developing specific skills such as asking questions, giving opinions, appraising research results obtained by other researchers and expressing written conclusions. Each doctoral student must present the state of their research at these seminars at least twice: after the first year of preparation of the thesis and in the third year with a preview of the results. The presentation will be discussed by researchers from Spain and abroad participating in the International Seminar.

The doctoral programme in Tourism and Leisure will organise quarterly Research Forums consisting of lectures and seminars given by lecturers and researchers of the URV, visiting lecturers, or renowned academics invited specifically for this purpose. These forums will present innovative research lines, results of projects, research reports and applications of new methodologies to specific areas of research. Participation in these forums gives doctoral students on this programme the opportunity to keep up to date on research, to meet prestigious scholars, to network, and to discuss with the speakers issues that may or may not be related to their own research.

In order to acquire methodological, linguistic and technological skills for scientific research, students must take a maximum of 180 hours of specific courses during the three- or five-year period of preparation of the thesis. The aim is for the students to learn to develop techniques applicable to the preparation of their doctoral thesis and to improve their specialised knowledge in their field of work. Students may choose among the various courses offered by the URV through its continuous training programmes for teaching staff. Students who have not completed the URV's master's degree in Analytical Techniques and Innovation in Tourism, which qualifies them directly for entrance to the doctoral programme, may take courses of this master's degree that are of particular interest for the doctoral thesis that they are preparing. The specific training to be carried out in each case will be laid down in the Doctoral Activity Document. For students following the doctoral programme from the Cozumel site of the University of Quintana Roo, these courses must include courses in research methodology, multivariate analysis and writing of scientific texts programmed by the Directorate of Sustainable Development of that university. For mobility students, this training activity will be recognised as the equivalent activity carried out during the mobility and scientific exchange stay.

Mobility and scientific exchange activities

The doctoral programme can be taken entirely at the URV, or it can be taken through distance learning if so agreed with the thesis supervisor. However, mobility is an added value to the doctoral training, so it is usually recommended that students undertake a research stay abroad.

If a research stay outside Spain is undertaken for a minimum of three months, and the requirements of Royal Decree 99/2011 are met, the doctoral students may obtain the International Doctor Mention.