Instituto de Estudios de Posgrado

Availability

Profile, admission requirements and training complements

ACCESS CRITERIA AND ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme is the body in charge of establishing access procedures and admission criteria. In any case, these criteria are in accordance with current national legislation and with the regulations governing Doctoral Studies at the University of Cordoba.

In the following link you can find the modalities of access to the Doctoral Studies, as well as the processes, documentation and deadlines for admission.

The Academic Committee of the PhD Programme in Biogeochemical Flow Dynamics and Applications may proceed to conditional admission of the candidate, without being able to register for academic supervision of PhD studies. The reasons which may give rise to a conditional admission are:

• Completion of complementary training. When, in consideration of the candidate's aptitudes and qualifications, it is appropriate for him or her to pass the legally determined training complements prior to joining the Doctoral Programme.
• The presentation of documentation accrediting administrative requirements. When the applicant meets the admission requirements but has pending the formalization of documentation or other administrative requirements (legalization of foreign documents, translation of documents, etc.

If the requirements are not met before the end of the second period of enrolment for academic supervision of PhD studies, admission will be cancelled for all purpose.

There are a series of research Masters that give direct access to this Doctoral Programme, these are the following:

• Interuniversity Master in Environmental Hydraulics.

Students who have taken research masters other than those that give access to this Doctoral Programme will have to present the complete documentation of their training, when applying for Admission, so that the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme, CAPD, can decide whether or not to require Complementary Training prior to admission to the Doctoral Programme, or the need to take Complementary Training during the first year of the Doctoral Programme.

Admission profile and training complements

The recommended admission profile includes the skills and previous knowledge that the ideal student should have to access the programme, as well as the languages that will be used during the training process.

The PhD Programme in Biogeochemical Flow Dynamics and its Applications recommends that the student:

A. Has a degree, bachelor's degree or diploma in the field of Science, Engineering and Technology in which physical-mathematical training credits are included. Some of the degrees that meet this requirement are Civil, Industrial, Agricultural, Forestry and Chemical Engineering, and Degrees and Bachelor's Degrees in Physical, Mathematical, Marine, Environmental and Biological Sciences.

B. Has specialized and multidisciplinary training in the field of environmental hydraulics at master's degree level or equivalent (level 7 of tertiary education of the ISCED - International Standard Classification of Education), in particular general knowledge to:

# describe, characterize and model natural processes related to flows of water, substances and living resources.
# optimize the management of inland and/or marine water resources and associated flows taking into account social, environmental and economic impacts, meeting the requirements of reliability, functionality and operability, and of the Water Framework Directive.
# Describe and evaluate the uncertainty of the processes, their diagnosis and prognosis.

C. Be proficient in Spanish and English at a level equivalent to B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

As provided for in point 2 of RD 99/2011, the Academic Committee of the Master's Degree and the tutor assigned to the student will agree on the additional training required for each profile depending on the basic training, the student's entry profile and the selected line of research, and they will be chosen from among the subjects of the Master's Degree in Environmental Hydraulics or other Master's degrees offered by the universities participating in the Programme.

The Academic Committee of the Programme will analyze in particular the cases of students with special educational needs in order to adapt the training programme to guarantee the acquisition of the competences of the doctoral level.

Permanence

Rules of permanence

Previous Information

The information system prior to the Doctoral Programme Dynamics of Biogeochemical Flows and their Applications has as its fundamental axis the consultation of information through the network, mainly from the web page of the Programme http://doctorados.ugr.es/dinamicaambiental/, which can also be accessed from the web pages of the bodies responsible for the Doctoral Programme in each of the participating universities, hosted in turn on the main pages of the Universities of Granada, Cordoba and Malaga

Information on the Doctoral Programme can be obtained through this website, which contains information on its name, objectives and competences to be acquired, access qualifications, research lines and teams, los coordination bodies, number of places offered, admission and selection criteria, training complements, training activities, requirements for the thesis, assessment procedures, specific agreements and quality assurance procedures and indicators.

The University of Cordoba`s Guide to Good Doctroal Practice includes usegul information on doctoral studies.

And on the general website of the UCO you can find the services for university students that can facilitate their integration in the university and in the city.

On the other hand, the Doctoral School of the University of Cordoba, or where appropriate, those responsible for the programme, hold an annual welcome session for all doctoral students at the end of the enrolment period of academic supervision. In this session, the basic rules of the Doctoral Programme are explained and the doctoral students are orientated about the procedures to follow, the people responsible for each of them, the most relevant deadlines, the use of both the doctoral website and the intranet, etc. with the aim of facilitating their insertion in the Doctoral Programme and the knowledge of the rules and procedures that regulate it.

In addition, orientation and information activities are carried out for students, such as:

• UCO Postgraduate Fairs
• Presentation of university master's degree programmes at UCO centres.
• Participation in international networks for the dissemination of doctoral programmes: Fundación Carolina and Asociación Universitaria Iberoamericana de Posgrado (AUIP).
• Specific information programmes on doctoral studies in Ecuador, Italy, Greece, Israel and the Dominican Republic
• Information actions developed by the International Relations Office of the UCO.
• Orientation of teaching staff participating in the UCO master's degree programmes

Registration

Information on access and enrolment

Assignment of tutor and thesis supervisor

To contact the representatives of the research lines/teams and to look for a possible tutor and thesis supervisor, an essential requirement to apply for admission to this Doctoral Programme, in the section on Lines and Human Resources you can find the teaching staff which currently make up the core of the Doctoral Programme and their e-mail addresses

The regulations governing tutoring and thesis supervision can be found at the following link: Regulations

Grants

Information on calls for grants and financial aid can be found at the following links

• UCO's own calls for applications/Resolutions for Doctoral Studies
• Calls, Scholarships, Grants and Prizes external to UCO

Traning activities

Training Plan : Biogeochemical Flux Dynamics and its Applications Training Plan

Training activities:

• Search and Management of Scientific Information
• Advanced graphical representation of data and results of scientific work
• Workshop on the Elaboration and Evaluation of a Research Project
• Workshop on Writing/Producing/Preparing a scientific article
• Attendance at seminars or conferences organised by the programme and given by experts in the field of knowledge.
• Delivery of a seminar on research work
• Presentation of a communication (poster or oral) at national or international congresses
• Co-direction of a Master's thesis with a research character.
• Design of experiments and fundamentals of data analysis.

Form for the presentation of the training plan:

Biogeochemical Flux Dynamics and its Applications Training Plan

Competences

Core Competences

• CB11 - Systematic comprehension of a field of study and mastery of research skills and methods related to that field.
• CB12 - Ability to conceive, design or create, implement and adopt a substantial research or creative process.
• CB13 - Ability to contribute to the expansion of the frontiers of knowledge through original research.
• CB14 - Ability to critically analyze, evaluate and synthesize new and complex ideas.
• CB15 - Ability to communicate with the academic and scientific community and with society in general about their fields of knowledge in the modes and languages commonly used in their international scientific community.
• CB16 - Ability to promote, in academic and professional contexts, scientific, technological, social, artistic or cultural progress within a knowledge-based society.

Personal skillsl and abilities

• CA01 - Manage in contexts where there is little specific information.
• CA02 - Find the key questions to be answered in order to solve a complex problem.
• CA03 - Design, create, develop and undertake novel and innovative projects in their field of knowledge.
• CA04 - Work both in a team and autonomously in an international or multidisciplinary context.
• CA05 - Integrate knowledge, deal with complexity and formulate judgments with limited information.
• CA06 - Critique and intellectual defense of solutions

Other competences

• CE1 - Understanding of Earth system processes associated with biogeochemical flows, and of the interactions between the atmosphere, bodies of water and the Earth's surface and their implications for ecosystems.
• CE2 - Analysis and modeling of the processes associated with biogeochemical fluxes including the different spatio-temporal scales and system responses.
• CE3 - Understanding and handling of the fundamentals of the integrated management of systems in which natural processes associated with biogeochemical flows and human activities interact.
• CE4 - Analysis of uncertainty in natural processes associated with biogeochemical flows and their influence on integrated resource management, development of optimization techniques, risk analysis and decision theory.
• CE5 - Training in experimental design, the carrying out of field campaigns and the use of the instruments used to take experimental measurements.
• CE6 - Training in the use of appropriate mathematical and statistical techniques for the processing, interpretation and management of information from field and experimental measurements.

Control and monitoring

Doctoral students are monitored both on a continuous basis (through the activity notebook) and through annual programmed activities (annual monitoring).

For continuous monitoring, the University of Cordoba provides doctoral students with a computer application (SIGMA) in which all compulsory and optional activities which form part of the integral training of doctoral students are recorded. When registering the research plan, and thereafter in the annual monitoring, doctoral students must submit to the Academic Committee of the PhD programme a proposal of the activities and objectives of the work to be carried out in that year, which will have the approval of the thesis supervisors, and the tutor if applicable. If the activities are not already established as compulsory by the Programme, the workload of these activities and the procedure to be used for their evaluation must be made explicit.

Each time the PhD student carries out one of these activities, he/she must register it in the aforementioned application and his/her tutor or director must validate it and accept it as a training activity for the PhD student. Each year, doctoral students will send the Institute of Postgraduate Studies the documentation accrediting the activities carried out.

In order for doctoral students to present the development of their research plan, especially with regard to methodology and the most significant advances and results achieved, the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme shall appoint one or more Monitoring Committees each year, formed by three doctoral students, one of whom shall be external to the Doctoral Programme and the other two shall be responsible for research teams attached to the Programme. If the necessary financial resources are available, an international expert shall be appointed as a doctoral candidate external to the Doctoral Programme. The document of activities carried out and the reports to be issued by the person tutoring and/or supervising the thesis must also be submitted.

The Monitoring Committee must issue an individual report with an assessment of the work carried out and the degree of progress in relation to the previous year. This assessment will take into account the degree of compliance and the evaluations obtained in the training activities, as well as the aforementioned reports. A positive evaluation will be a prerequisite for continuing in the Programme. In the event of a negative evaluation, which will be duly justified, the doctoral student will undergo a new evaluation within six months, for which purpose he/she will prepare a new research plan. In the event of a new negative evaluation, the PhD student will be permanently withdrawn from the programme.

The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme shall send the results of the monitoring process to the Institute of Postgraduate Studies every year, on the date established by the Master's and Doctoral Programme Committee. If, during the course of the academic year, significant modifications are made to the work plan submitted, these must be communicated by the PhD student, with the approval of his/her supervisor, to the Academic Committee, which will communicate its resolution within a maximum period of 20 days.

Thesis

The presentation and reading of the thesis will be carried out in accordance with the regulations governing doctoral studies at the UCO, following the procedure that can be found at the following link.

Thesis - supervision and presentation

The PhD studies leading to the defense of a Doctoral Thesis and obtaining a Doctorate Degree at the University of Córdoba are supervised on a regular basis by the Tutors and Directors of each doctoral student, and are evaluated annually by the Doctoral Program Academic Committees, as shown on the general IDEP-Doctorate website (Section: Evaluación Anual / Annual Evaluation). If a doctoral student does not meet the requirements of this evaluation, for which they are given two opportunities, they will be obliged to permanently withdraw from the PhD program.

In the general IDEP-Doctorate website (Section: Tesis Doctoral / Doctoral Thesis), full information can be found about presenting the thesis, general requirements, types of theses, who makes up the panel of judges, documentation required, defense, etc.

In addition to these sections, the PhD Program has approved additional requirements for some types of theses. In all cases, the basic requirement is that at least one of the scientific contributions derived from the thesis has been published in an international journal with an impact index included in the Journal Citation Reports. The PhD student must appear as first author of the publication, or second if the first author is the director of the thesis. (See document in section: Reglamento / Regulations, right-hand column)

Tutors, direction and co-supervision of thesis

In order to carry out their PhD studies at the UCO, PhD students must have a tutor and at least one Director (this may be the same person as the tutor, if they belong to the UCO and student and tutor so wish). In some cases, students may request that the CAPD approve two professors or, exceptionally, up to three, as joint directors of one thesis. Full information about this choice can be found on the general IDEP-Doctorate website (Section: Dirección de Tesis Doctoral / Management of PhD Thesis).

The same page shows a list of the research lines/teams which currently form the PhD Program; the line/team managers and researchers who make up the teams are also available

Internationalization

The University of Cordoba

Offers various grants for the internationalisation of doctoral studies which mainly take the form of calls for international stays to obtain the International Mention and the completion of theses in co-supervision with foreign universities. These calls can be consulted in the section Doctoral Calls/Resolutions

The international dimension is of growing importance at the University, with implications both internally in terms of improving the quality and relevance of its basic functions (training, research, extension and management), and externally in terms of taking advantage of the opportunities of transnational education and international projection. These aspects of the internationalisation process take the form of two fundamental modes of action: inter-university cooperation and development cooperation. The University of Cordoba is sensitive to internationalisation from all these perspectives, incorporating it into its institutional development and projecting its teaching and research offer abroad.

The internationalisation of the University requires the design of active policies that contribute to defining action plans, as well as management instruments appropriate to its characteristics and specificities. In order to achieve these objectives, the University of Cordoba has made provision in its budget for funds to be applied to the development of international cooperation activities. These funds are distributed through the University's own International Cooperation Programme 2012, which responds to the priorities of its Strategic Plan.

The Programme is structured in five different modalities of action: the first supports the mobility of teaching and non-teaching staff; the second modality promotes new internationalisation initiatives; the third seeks to increase the presence of students from Latin American countries in UCO postgraduate courses; the fourth aims to promote Spanish-English bilingualism through intensive courses in foreign institutions, and the provision of English readers to UCO departments; finally, the fifth category promotes development cooperation activities.

University of Granada

The University of Granada is currently in the fourth edition of its own Internationalisation Plan, which came into operation in 2009. With this plan, the University of Granada consolidates a plan that is committed to strengthening its international dimension, using part of its budgets to undertake internationalisation initiatives not covered by the different national and European programmes, as well as to complement the external funds obtained for the management of these programmes. With the experience of the three previous editions of this Plan, this edition of the Plan maintains the basic structure of the 2011 call for specific aid for internationalisation actions, articulated in ten programmes whose main objective is to promote and develop in a sustainable way the international dimension of study, teaching, research and management of the institution and the services offered and the participation of the UGR in all those initiatives that can favour its international dimension. It is worth highlighting in the current 2012 edition the extension of the awards for excellence in international student mobility from three to four awards.

University of Malaga

One of the main objectives of the University of Malaga, through its different strategic plans, is to structure the R&D&I system in Malaga, adapting the sustainable economy model and facilitating the existence of an attractive place for students, researchers and staff, becoming an international reference space.