DOCTORAL SCHOOL

Quality policy

The University of Alcalá’s strong commitment to quality in its doctoral programmes, allowing the specialization of students in their academic, professional or research careers, have made doctoral degrees take centre stage within the academic offer of the University. In this sense, the Doctoral School of the University of Alcalá sets the following general objectives related to quality:

• To ensure that the quality policy of the EDUAH is understood and accepted by all staff and is available to everyone.
• To extend the culture of quality and continuous improvement in the administrative and academic performance of the doctoral programmes.
• To improve students’ satisfaction through direct and individual attention, which facilitates their progress, improves their academic performance and place them in a position of competitive advantage when trying to get into the workplace.
• To achieve a permanent commitment to continuous improvement as a standard norm of conduct and to propose, and carry out, the corrective and preventive actions that may be necessary.
• To ensure the Quality Assurance remains effective and is periodically monitored and reviewed.

On 14 July 2014 the Managing Committee of the Doctoral School passes the Quality Assurance System Manual (PDF). The modification of this document has been approved by the Government Council of 31 January 2019.

Research ethics

The EDUAH is committed to promote research excellence and integrity. These principles should be applied to the whole research process, including experimental design, generating and analysing data, applying for funding and publishing results. The National Declaration on Scientific Integrity provides details of these principles and ethical responsibilities in research activities. This Declaration has been subscribed by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the Confederación de Sociedades Científicas de España (COSCE) and Crue universidades españolas. 

All EDUAH researchers (tutors, thesis supervisors and students) should adhere to the highest standards of integrity and are required to subscribe the School’s Learning and good practice agreement (PDF).

The EDUAH’s  Code of Good Practice sets out to define the principles, the criteria and the instruments that allow the improvement of the quality of the School’s doctoral programmes.

The University of Alcalá also has a Committee of Research Ethics and Animal Experiments whose mission is to report and advise on the ethical issues of the UAH research projects.

Plagiarism, deception or the falsification of results will be regarded as a serious disciplinary offence. (See the information provided by our Library on plagiarism and copyright.)

It is also important to be familiar with the information that the University of Alcalá provides on Protection of Personal Data.

Keeping track of alumni

Keeping track of alumni provides valuable information on the employment of the new doctors and their satisfaction with the training received. Therefore, it is important to establish and maintain a two-way relationship between the University of Alcalá and its PhD alumni. In addition, this relationship should be used to improving the quality of the training offered by EDUAH, as well as to strengthen future collaborations that might be of interest to both the University and the institutions or companies in which PhDs develop their professional activity.

A computer programme is being developed to collect questionnaires from alumni. Once the data from the questionnaires have been obtained, the results will be assessed. This process involves the EDUAH and academic committees of doctoral programmes.

Complaints and Suggestions Box

The aim of the Complaints and Suggestions Box is to keep a record of complaints, ideas or suggestions about how the Doctoral School works. 

Making a complaint or suggestion

There are two ways for students to make a complaint or suggestion:

• In person: by printing and handing in at any of the Registry offices of the University of Alcalá the properly completed form (PDF)
• Electronically: by sending the properly completed form (PDF) to quejas.sugerencias@uah.es. An email address must be given.

Students must identify themselves. Anonymous complaints or suggestions will not be dealt with.

Procedure

Once the complaint or suggestion has reached the appropriate destination, this will inform the student within 20 days of the actions taken and measures adopted. 

Each complaint or suggestion will be kept on file. If the complaint implies any abnormal functioning of the services, relevant action may be taken on a case by case basis. Under no circumstances will the complaints made be treated as administrative appeals.