Organisation

Doctoral students are provided with rigorous methodological foundations and functional design skills to carry out research activities in the topic of specialization of the doctoral project. Training is developed at both the multidisciplinary and disciplinary levels. Multidisciplinary training confers unity in the approach to research and in the vision of problems; disciplinary training associates the doctoral student with the research group that ensures consistent epistemological foundations with respect to the topic under analysis. The training is carried out through various types of integrated and ad personam didactics to acquire knowledge of the problems and research techniques specific to the topics in which the course is divided.

The training objectives are achieved by structuring the doctoral course as follows:

• 1st year, foundations of research with definition of the doctoral research project;
• 2nd year, development of the doctoral thesis with research activities and possible period of visiting research at qualified foreign universities/research institutes;
• 3rd year, completion of the doctoral thesis with research activities and presentation at academic conferences.

The first year is devoted to transferring the basic knowledge needed to properly structure the research project and developing soft skills, language skills, and computer skills.

After providing the methodological foundations of scientific research, starting from the first year and throughout the second year, the training program is tailored specifically to each individual student, aligning activities, lectures, and seminars with their chosen research area. Participation in national and international conferences and the presentation of studies for potential publication are strongly encouraged and supported from the second year onwards. The writing of the doctoral dissertation becomes, however, the main commitment of the third year.

Each doctoral student is assured, in addition to the grant and within the existing financial resources in the budget of the accredited subjects under current legislation, a budget for research activities in Italy and abroad equal to 10% of the amount of the grant itself. This budget is managed by the Department seat of reference of the student's activities, according to the specific procedures provided.

After admission to the course, each student is assigned a tutor (and possible co-tutor) by the Board of Lecturers, who acts as supervisor of the research and with whom he/she agrees on the annual plan of the educational activity.
At the end of each year, the student is required to submit for the tutor's approval the annual final report card of the activities carried out, including an analytical list of these activities, certification of the aptitudes achieved, and a summary on the research activity carried out (methodology, objectives, results obtained). The tutor verifies the consistency of the annual activity carried out with the overall three-year plan of the student's education, training and research. The consumptive form signed by the tutor must be forwarded to the coordinator.

Having acquired the final report card, the Board of Lecturers annually evaluates the progress of the research project by means of a verification test consisting of a public presentation of the results achieved by each individual student. The College of Lecturers' judgment of suitability is binding for admission to the following year and/or the final examination.