When submitting the thesis, the student must check if he/she meets the necessary prerequisites. To do so, he/she can consult his/her academic transcript data in the Prerequisites section of the DATRES platform. These requirements are as follows:

1. The doctoral student must be enrolled on the doctoral programme in the academic year in which the thesis is to be deposited.
2. The persons who have supervised the thesis must match those who appear on the PhD student's transcript. If they do not match, a change of supervisor should be requested using this form.
3. The title of the thesis must also be the same as the title that appears in the student's file (last research plan approved by the Academic Committee); if it is not the same, a new updated Research Plan must be submitted through the DATRES application, which must be approved by the corresponding Academic Committee.
4. Where necessary, a favourable report from the Research Ethics Committee (REC) must have been obtained. This requirement will be compulsory for students admitted from the academic year 2020-2021 (inclusive).
5. At least 12 months must have elapsed since admission to the doctoral programme.
6. The student must have obtained at least one annual assessment.
7. The last annual assessment must be positive.
8. Not having exceeded the established time period for completion of doctoral studies.
9. Doctoral students who began their studies prior to the academic year 2022-2023, must enter on the DATRES platform all the training activities recognised by the Academic Committee that have been carried out prior to the academic year 2021-2022.

Once the Doctoral Thesis has been completed, in the Thesis Submission section of the DATRES platform, the thesis should be included together with the documentation indicated below. The completion of this procedure means the interruption of the calculation of the duration of the programme.

Documentation to be attached:

• Thesis in pdf.
• pdf document generated by the Turnitin application. If the thesis has been compiled from a collection of articles and all the articles have already been published, a match analysis report is not required. In the event that any of the articles have not been published, the analysis should be carried out on those parts of the work that have not been published.
• Complete the thesis abstract in English and Spanish.
•  UNESCO codes assigned to the thesis.
• For students admitted from the academic year 2020-2021 (inclusive), if required, a report from the Research Ethics Committee (REC), which must be uploaded to the platform.

If, in addition, any of the different Modalities for the presentation of the doctoral thesis listed on the platform is selected, additional documentation must be provided. Once you have selected one of them, a drop-down menu will open to include the specific documentation required for that case.

If the thesis is requested with International Mention, in addition to the documents indicated above, the following specific documentation must be provided:

• Final Report of the stay (stays after 1/1/2023) or the Endorsement and authorisation of the stay by the Academic Committee(stays before 1/1/2023).
• Original certificate(s) of stay signed by the person(s) responsible for the stay(s) at the host institution(s) (original signature required). In this/these document(s) there must be clear evidence of a total stay of at least 3 months.
• Accreditation of a B2 level in the language in which the thesis will be defended, whenever it is different from their mother tongue. This rule will be compulsory for doctoral students admitted from the 2015-2016 academic year. In the CRUE link for language level accreditation certificates  you can consult the official certificates accepted by the University of Alcalá.

If the thesis is requested with an Industrial Mention, in addition to the general documents indicated above, the doctoral student must have, from the moment of signing the annex of the university-business agreement, the authorisation of the Academic Committee to obtain the Industrial Doctorate Mention. To request this, the following documents must have been provided:

• University-Business Collaboration Agreement (to be included by the Doctoral School).
• Copy of the contract.
• Scientific and technical report of the industrial, commercial, social or cultural research project.

In the case of joint supervised theses, in addition to the general documents indicated above, an original certificate accrediting the stays carried out at the respective foreign university (minimum six months) must be included on the Platform, as well as the joint supervision agreement (to be included by the Doctoral School).

Once the application has been correctly completed and the changes have been saved in the thesis deposit authorisation request section, the platform will generate the application and the doctoral student's stay time will be suspended. The application will be submitted to the directors for their report and, subsequently, to the Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme for approval.

Notes:

1. It is recommended to start the deposit procedures well in advance of the end date of the stay. Please note that in the external assessment process (from the academic year 2024-2025) substantial modifications may be requested that require the withdrawal of the initial copy of the thesis (cancellation of the deposit application process) and the submission of a new copy. This means an unspecified additional time period, which could only be used if the doctoral student has sufficient time available within the time allotted to him or her.).
2. Any incident related to the thesis submission process can be reported through the available "user service" tab or by e-mail to tesisdoctorales@uah.es.
3. For documents where the original is required and those which have not been signed electronically, the Doctoral School will require a hard copy of the original documentation.

Report for the deposit of thesis supervisors

The directors must then review the documentation uploaded to the platform and report (favourably or unfavourably) on the submission of the thesis for deposit. The issuing of this report should take no more than 5 days.

Approval of the deposit request by the Academic Committee

After consulting the doctoral student's file and the supervisor's report and verifying that the thesis meets all the quality requirements for a doctoral thesis on this Doctoral Programme, the Academic Committee will approve or reject the application to deposit the thesis. This process should take no more than 10 days. If the Committee considers that the thesis does not meet the quality requirements, the previous process is cancelled and the doctoral student is subject to his or her time period (to which the time elapsed during this process will have been added). The doctoral student must remedy the observations made by the Academic Committee before a new application for deposit can be initiated. This new application may not be submitted before two months have elapsed following the receipt of the non-authorisation of the application for deposit.

Proposal and appointment of external experts (This section will come into force from the academic year 2024-2024).

If the application for the deposit is approved, the period of evaluation of the thesis by two external experts from outside the university begins. The Academic Committee will request these reports, which may propose areas for improvement. The time period for receipt of the reports will be one month.

In the case of applying for "international doctoral mention", the expert doctoral candidates, external to the university, must belong to a non-Spanish higher education institution or research institute. These persons may not coincide with the researchers who received the doctoral student and carried out tutoring or supervision tasks at the host institution of the research stays.

The DATRES platform will include the details of the two external experts, including a document of acceptance and the curriculum vitae, if applicable.

Authorisation for the deposit of theses by the Academic Committee (This section will come into force from the academic year 2024-2024).

Depending on the content of these reports, the Academic Committee will authorise, within a period of no more than 10 days, the deposit of the thesis on the DATRES platform, or may ask the doctoral student to respond and, where appropriate, include the relevant modifications to the doctoral thesis within a period of one month. In its application, the Academic Committee will indicate which questions the doctoral student must respond to.

a) Reports favourable to the defence of the thesis

In the case of reports favourable to the defence of the thesis, two scenarios may arise:

- the reports are favourable and the Academic Committee does not consider it necessary to ask the doctoral candidate for any clarification and/or modification. In this case, the Academic Committee will authorise, within a period of no more than 10 days from receipt of the experts' reports, the deposit of the Thesis.

- The reports are favourable, but recommend areas for improvement. The Academic Committee will ask the doctoral candidate for answers and/or modifications within a period of no more than 10 days from receipt of the experts' reports. In this case, the doctoral student will have a period of one month to answer and/or modify the questions raised by the external experts and indicated by the Academic Committee in their application.

Once the Academic Committee has received and analysed the answers and/or modifications from the doctoral student, it will either authorise or not authorise the deposit of the thesis within a period of no more than 10 days. If it is not authorised, the application process is cancelled and the PhD student is subject to his/her established time period (to which the time elapsed during this process will have been added). The doctoral student must remedy the observations made by the Academic Committee before a new application for deposit can be initiated. This new application may not be submitted before two months have elapsed following the receipt of the non-authorisation of the application for deposit.

In case of authorisation by the Academic Committee, the following procedure will be followed:

• If the doctoral student's response to the questions raised in the reports is satisfactory, but no changes have been made to the initial copy of the thesis, the thesis may be deposited.
• If changes have been made to the initial copy of the thesis, the doctoral student must carry out a similarity analysis (Turnitin) of the new version of the thesis. In this case, the new version of the thesis and the new similarity report must be included in DATRES. The persons supervising the Doctoral Thesis will provide notification of the inclusion of these documents and, after their assessment by the Academic Committee, the latter may authorise the deposit of the Thesis.

b) Reports unfavourable to the defence of the thesis

If one or both of the external reports are unfavourable, the Academic Committee will ask for the doctoral student's responses and/or modifications to their comments. Once the responses have been received, the Academic Committee will decide whether or not to authorise the deposit of the thesis. If the deposit is authorised, proceed in accordance with (a) and (b) above. If it is not authorised, the previous process will be cancelled and the doctoral student will be subject to his/her time period (to which the time elapsed during this process will have been added). During this period of time, the doctoral student may correct the observations made by the Academic Committee and start a new application for deposit. This new application may not be submitted before two months have elapsed following the receipt of the non-authorisation of the application for deposit.

Deposit of doctoral thesis

Once the Academic Committee has authorised the submission of the thesis for deposit on the DATRES platform, the doctoral student must submit the application for deposit of the thesis to the Director of the Doctoral School via the UAH Virtual Office .

Once the thesis has been deposited, the Doctoral School will communicate the period of public information of the deposited thesis to all the departments and university research institutes of the University, indicating that, during a period of 10 working and teaching days, the thesis may be examined by any doctor at the Doctoral School, upon request, and any observations on the content of the thesis may be sent to the Director of the Doctoral School. 

For the purposes of submitting applications, all Saturdays throughout the year, the month of August and the Christmas and Easter academic holidays are not considered to be teaching days or working days.

The defence of the Doctoral Thesis must take place within a maximum of four months and a minimum of one and a half months from the date of deposit.

Once the defence of the Doctoral Thesis has been approved by the doctoral programme's Academic Committee, the Committee will send the Doctoral School the proposal for the examining board, in accordance with the characteristics indicated below. There is no need to wait for the end of the public information period.

Examining board proposal

The examining board will be composed of three full members and three substitutes, with a Doctoral degree and accredited research experience, and the following requirements must be respected in its composition (both full and substitutes):

1) The external experts who issued the reports on the doctoral thesis may form part of the examining board if they meet the requirements set out in the regulations of the University of Alcalá.

2) The person chairing the examining board must have two six-year research periods in the last 16 years (the dates of award will be indicated) or show evidence of research experience equivalent to the amount required to obtain the two six-year periods. In this case, a curriculum vitae must be provided, in a separate document, showing those merits that accredit equivalent research experience. In any case, the Academic Committee will ensure compliance with one or another requirement.

3) The person acting as secretary and the member of the examining board must have one six-year research period in the last 10 years (the dates of award will be indicated) or show evidence of research experience equivalent to the amount required to obtain the six-year period. In this case, a curriculum vitae must be provided, in a separate document, showing those merits that accredit equivalent research experience. In any case, the Academic Committee will ensure compliance with one or another requirement.

4) If there is a lecturer from the University of Alcalá among the members of the examining board, he/she must act as Secretary or Chairperson of the examining board.

5) It shall be composed of a majority of members from outside the programme and the University where the thesis will be defended. No more than two members of the examining board may be from the same institution. In the event that two members from the University or from the same institution are proposed, one shall be a titular member and the other a substitute for the same position (chairman, member, secretary).

6) The principle of a balanced composition between women and men must be guaranteed in the composition of thesis examining boards, as set out in RD 576/2023, which amends RD 99/2011 regulating doctoral studies.

7) The persons directing and supervising the thesis may not form part of the examining board, except in the case of theses presented within the framework of bilateral joint supervision agreements where this is provided for.

After the end of the public information period, the Director of the Doctoral School will assess and approve, if appropriate, the proposal for the examining board sent by the Academic Committee. The Doctoral School will notify the members of the examining board of their appointment.

Authorisation for the defence of the Doctoral Thesis

Once they have been appointed, the members of the examining board will have one month to send the Doctoral School an individual and reasoned report assessing the Doctoral Thesis and approving or disapproving it. This requirement will not be necessary for theses presented as a compendium of publications.

In order for the defence of the Doctoral Thesis to be carried out, the three reports of the previous article must be positive.

The Doctoral School, after the period of public information and having heard the observations, if any, as well as the reports of the examining board, will decide whether or not to proceed with the public defence or, where appropriate, to interrupt the processing of the thesis. In the event of non-authorization of the defense of the Doctoral Thesis, the Doctoral School must communicate in writing to the doctoral candidate, to the persons who tutor and direct the Thesis and to the Doctoral Program Coordination.

Once the panel has agreed on a date, the Secretary will communicate by email to tesisdoctorales@uah.es the date, place and time scheduled for the defence, at least 10 days before the defence (holiday periods will not be taken into account).

The defence of the Thesis must take place at the University of Alcalá and will take place during the school term of the academic calendar, excluding all Saturdays of the year, the month of August and the Christmas and Easter school holidays.

Constitution and proceedings of the examining board

For the valid constitution of the examining board, for the purposes of defence, discussion, assessment and grading of the Thesis, the presence of three members will be required, no two of whom may belong to the same institution.

The examining board that assesses the thesis will have at its disposal the doctoral student's activity document with the training activities carried out during his or her doctoral studies. This document will not give rise to a quantitative mark, but will constitute a qualitative evaluation instrument that will complement the evaluation of the doctoral thesis. It will also have the reports of the external experts, as well as, where appropriate, the doctoral student's response to them.

Once the defence and discussion of the Thesis has been completed, the examining board will issue a collegiate report and the overall grade awarded to the Thesis according to the following scale: Fail", "Pass", "Merit" and "Outstanding".

The examining board may award the mention of "cum laude” if the overall grade is "Outstanding" and a unanimous positive secret ballot is cast in that regard. These votes shall be counted in a public session presided over by the Director of the Doctoral School, on the premises of the said School.

Likewise, each member of the examining board may indicate, anonymously, whether they consider that the Thesis is eligible for the Extraordinary Doctorate Award.

Once the Doctoral Thesis has been approved, the Doctoral School will archive it in open electronic format in a repository of the University Library and will send all the necessary information to the Ministry with competence in this area for the purpose of its inclusion in TESEO.