Final Exam

• Request for admission to the thesis review procedure (Final examination)

Before applying, the student must discuss the state of the thesis with his/her advisor.
Mandatory for admission to the final examination is the completion of a period of research of at least 3 months’ duration spent abroad and publication of at least two ISI- or SCOPUS-indexed publications.
The request for admission to the final examination must be submitted online by means of the Esse3 system http://www.esse3.unitn.it/Start.do
The request implies the payment of a contribution (“final examination contribution”) of € 72,00 (which includes two duty stamps of € 16,00). PhD students must have regularly paid all the three-year PhD course fees when they submit the online final examination form.
Information about the online application is available at https://www.unitn.it/en/ateneo/1932/final-examination
PhD students are asked to fill in the AlmaLaurea questionnaire together with the request for admission to the final examination, in order to gather their opinions about the services provided by our university.

• Award of the label “Doctor Europaeus” 

The additional label of "Doctor Europaeus" may be awarded to those PhD students who fulfil the prerequisites proposed by the European University Association as follows: 

1. positive judgement on the thesis by two referees from two higher education institutions of two European countries, other than the one where the doctoral thesis will be defended; 
2. at least one member of the final examination committee comes from a higher education institution in a European country other than the one where the doctoral thesis will be defended; 
3. period abroad of at least 3 months spent in another European country; 
4. the doctoral thesis must have been partly prepared as a result of a period of research of at least one trimester spent in another European country. 

PhD students interested in obtaining the title of “Doctor Europaeus” should indicate their interest in the AlmaLaurea questionnaire (see the previous point)
Information is available at http://www.unitn.it/en/ateneo/50322/doctor-europaeus

• Request for Postponement 

Just for important reasons that do not allow to submit the thesis on schedule, the student can request a postponement period. All the deadlines are postponed for the same period requested.

The IECS Doctoral School Secretariat will send PhD students all details about their referees as well as the instructions on the submission of the required documents 
PhD students have to upload to Easychair a single pdf file (file extension .pdf) containing:

1. thesis;
2. a report on the research/study activities that he/she has carried out during his/her Doctoral Programme and a list of his/her publications. The report should contain:

• list of publications
• periods spent abroad for study/research reasons
• Summer/winter schools, Conferences
• participation in research projects
• other

A template will provided by the IECS Doctoral School Secretariat

As soon as the student has uploaded the required file to Easychair, he/she informs both his/her referees, as well as the IECS Doctoral School Secretariat, about his/her submission.
Referees submit their evaluation for the thesis within 30 days from when the thesis is available on Easychair. The latest date for the submission of the reviews is 28 February. 

As an overall evaluation of the student's thesis, referees may propose one of the following results:

• MINOR Revision: admission of the student to the final examination/PhD defence
• MAJOR Revision: the student must resubmit to Easychair a new version of the thesis with a rebuttal letter within 3 months (Final Exam to be discussed by July 31, 2023)
• MAJOR Revision: the student must resubmit to Easychair a new version of the thesis with a rebuttal letter within 6 months (Final Exam to be discussed by October 31, 2023)

Each PhD student will receive the reviews via email as soon as both referees have submitted their evaluations.
 

PhD students send the final version of the thesis (.pdf) to each member of the final examination committee and to both the referees via e-mail. No hard copy must be submitted.

PhD students must upload the final version of the thesis (.pdf) and the Deposit Disclaimer to the online open-access archive IRIS https://iris.unitn.it/ PhD students may decide to let the thesis be made public or to restrict its access. ‘Embargo’ is a period during which the thesis is kept secret. Only bibliographic metadata are made visible. PhD students can request a period of embargo (up to 24 months).

NB: PhD students who have been awarded a scholarship funded by other institutions (e.g. research centres, companies, European Commission) should contact the IECS Doctoral School Secretariat to determine whether any imposing secrecy restriction is foreseen. Once the thesis has been submitted to the online University archive, it can no longer be replaced with another version.

Those PhD students who do not self-archive both their thesis and Deposit Disclaimer in the online University archive, will not receive the PhD diploma on the date of the final examination.

The Guidelines for uploading Doctoral theses in IRIS is available in the Box Download on the web page Research outputs management https://www.biblioteca.unitn.it/en/404/research-outputs-management

Intellectual property rights: https://www.unitn.it/en/ricerca/1767/protection-and-valorization-of-intellectual-property

All materials regarding the upload of the required documents to the online University archive and the copyright issues are available from the box “Download” at the following link https://www.unitn.it/en/ateneo/1932/final-examination.

Advisors should approve their PhD students’ admission to the thesis review procedure (final examination) or its postponement.
In case of request for admission to the thesis evaluation (final examination), advisors should submit an evaluation on the research carried on by the candidate during her/his PhD leading to the thesis proposal to the Doctorate Student Career http://dsc.disi.unitn.it/

Send all the details below concerning the two referees who will review their PhD students’ thesis to iecs.school [at] unitn.it:

• surname, name;
• affiliation;
• academic/work position;
• email contact
• if either of the referees will be part of the final examination committee as well. In this case they may be reimbursed (only travel expenses); otherwise it is not possible.

Advisors should suggest referees who have already confirmed their availability.

Referees eligibility criteria:

• experts selected among highly qualified tenured academic staff or tenured lecturers belonging to other institutions (NO UniTrento)
• at least one referee must be academic staff (professor or researcher) 
• researchers who work for companies that deal with research
• no previous collaborations with the student (e.g. thesis co-tutorship, internship, research collaboration)
• adjunct lecturers/instructors are not eligible
• possessors of titles such as Emeritus Professor, Emeritus Reader, Senior Fellow are not eligible unless they have a teaching contract or are in service at a foreign research institute or university.

Referees submit their evaluation for the thesis within 30 days from when the thesis is available. The two referees may be part of the final examination committee as well. In this case they may be reimbursed (only travel expenses).

Once the student has been admitted to the final examination by the two referees, the advisor should send to iecs.school [at] unitn.it:

• composition of the final examination committee;
• date of the final examination.

The final examination committee should be composed of:

1. from three to five members selected among tenured academic (university) staff and/or researchers at Italian and/or foreign institutions, specialized in the topics of the dissertation;
2. “two-thirds” of the commission must be external to UniTrento and “two-thirds” must be academic staff; 
3. up to two external experts may be added. They can be lecturers/researchers or experts selected from universities and public and private research centres.

NB: Advisors should suggest a committee whose members have already confirmed their availability.

• The advisor cannot be part of the committee.
• Referees can be part of the committee (they can be any of the 3 - 5 + additional 2 members, see above).
• Researchers who work for companies that deal with research may be part of the committee (they can be any of the 3 - 5 + additional 2 members, see above).
• Possessors of titles such as Emeritus Professor, Emeritus Reader, Senior Fellow are not eligible unless they have a teaching contract or are in service at a foreign research institute or university.

The advisor should support the committee during the entire proclamation ceremony of the candidate. The IECS Doctoral School Secretariat will send advisors all details on the ceremony and in particular on the advisor’s duties.