Those interested in becoming supervisors of BiotechHealth students should send an email to info@biotechhealth.pt addressed to the programme’s Director, including a motivation letter and a brief CV.
The core supervisors should comply with minimum criteria set out below, irrespective of their age, gender, career position or type of contract/agreement with the host institutes. This means that a researcher hired by a research laboratory will have the right to supervise a PhD thesis if he/she meets the following criteria:
a) Have published a minimum of 5 scientific papers in journals of the first quartile (Q1) of their scientific area in the last 5 years;
b) Have supervised or co-supervised at least two successfully completed PhD theses in the last 5 years;
c) Have had funding for the last 5 years, through projects secured by competitive funding;
d) Have had an active participation in the organization of advanced international training activities in the last 5 years.
4) Co-supervisors will have to meet the above criteria, in case they obtained their doctoral degree more than 5 years ago. Younger investigators will be allowed to co-supervise students if they meet the above criteria, except criterium b).
PhD Advisory Committee (PAC)
Whenever suitable and adequate a PAC will be constituted for each student for regular discussion with the student on the progress of the work. The PAC will be proposed by the student and the supervisor to the BiotechHealth SC. The PAC should include the supervisor, co-supervisor (if applicable) and up to two other investigators not directly involved in the research work. The PAC meets at the request of the student. It is recommended that the PAC meets the student at least once a year. The scientific information exchanged during the meetings is kept confidential.
Monitoring of progress
Every year the student prepares a short activity report (2-3 pages), including:
- Conferences, courses, seminars, workshops (Title, organising institution, chairperson/organizer, dates, link to web page; added value for the student. Training activities both in the scientific domain of the thesis and transferable skills)
- Research activities (Objectives; major findings; deviations from the initial plan)
- Transversal skills (Statement on skills acquired through participation in the daily life of the institution/laboratory/group, namely organization of meetings; training of undergraduate students; participation in laboratory management. An estimate of the time allocated to each one of these activities should be provided).
- Research outputs (Papers published; communications in conferences)
- Collaborations (International and national. Scope of the collaborations and their added value)
- Plans for next year (Planned activities, in terms of research and advanced training (both scientific and transversal skills)
Progress is approved by the SC, based on prior assessment by the supervisor, eventually complemented by a report by the PAC. The SC provides a feedback to the student which includes: (i) qualitative assessment on progress and (ii) a checkpoint mark (scale 1 to 5) for the Curricular Unit of Transversal Skills and Advanced Training. The final mark in this Unit is based on the checkpoint marks for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years.
