Welcome event for new doctoral students and special doctoral awards ceremony
The welcome event for new doctoral students and the special doctoral awards ceremony will take place on Friday 8 November in the Auditorium of the UPC’s Vèrtex building. A total of 29 doctoral students have received this recognition.
Nov 05, 2019
The special doctoral awards have been presented to candidates selected among those who earned a doctoral degree with a cum laude mention during the 2016–2017 academic year in any doctoral programme at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) in any of the following five areas of knowledge: architecture, urbanism and building construction; sciences; civil engineering; ICT engineering; and industrial engineering.
This year’s 29 awards were granted based on scientific, technical or artistic output and research papers that are a direct consequence of the doctoral theses. The awards will be presented during the welcome event for UPC’s new doctoral students, organised by the Doctoral School, which will take place on 8 November at 11.30 a.m. in the Auditorium of the UPC’s Vèrtex building on the North Campus, in Barcelona, and can be followed live on UPCtv.
The director of the UPC’s Doctoral School, Francesc Sepulcre, will deliver the opening speech. The event will also be attended by Alexander Hasgall, head of the Council for Doctoral Education of the European University Association (EUA), who will give a lecture entitled “Doctoral education in Europe today: approaches and institutional structures”, and Jaume Masip, head of Forecasting and Analytics at CBRE Spain, who will give a lecture entitled “Alternative careers for PhD holders: the private sector journey”.
The welcome event will also feature a brief speech by the Doctoral Student Council about its organisation and the activities they hold over the year. The event will close with two talks especially aimed at new doctoral students: “5 tricks to make the most of UPC libraries”, by Pilar Bombín and Anna Rovira, from the UPC’s Libraries, Publications and Archives Service; and “Assessment/support from the International Students Office, for your legal procedures during your stay”, by Bérénice Martín, from the International Relations Bureau.
The UPC’s doctoral studies
The UPC offers 46 doctoral programmes, which are divided in five areas of knowledge: architecture, urbanism and building construction; sciences; civil engineering; ICT engineering; and industrial engineering. Doctoral programmes are official postgraduate courses providing advanced training and research practice in specialised areas. Fees are set by government decree. Doctoral study is geared towards the writing, presentation and defence of a doctoral thesis, successful completion of which qualifies students for the award of the doctorate and for access to university teaching and research positions. In the 2017–2018 academic year, 292 doctoral students defended their theses at the UPC and all of them successfully earned their doctorates.
In addition, the University actively participates in the Industrial Doctorate Plan, promoted by the Government of Catalonia, in which doctoral candidates carry out research in the framework of a company’s strategic research project.
