International Doctorate Certification

• Stay abroad: Completion of one or more stays of at least three months outside Spain at one or more prestigious institutions of higher education or research centres to complement and deepen research training. If you complete numerous stays abroad, at least one of them must have lasted a minimum of one month. The stays must be approved by your thesis supervisors and authorized by the academic committee of your doctoral programme. Once they have been completed and verified by the host organization, they must be recorded in your activity report.
• Language of the thesis and the thesis defence: part of the doctoral thesis (at least the summary and conclusions) must be written and defended in one of the standard languages for scientific communication in the corresponding field of knowledge that is not an official or co-official language of Spain. This rule does not apply to stays in, reports issued in or experts from Spanish-speaking or Catalan-speaking countries or regions.  This requisite will be specified in your thesis defence record.
• Reports from two external experts for the approval of the deposit and defence of your doctoral thesis: The external experts who prepare the report on your doctoral thesis must be affiliated to a non-Spanish university or research institution.
• Thesis defence panel: your thesis examination panel must have at least one doctoral expert from a non-Spanish university or research centre other than the person with whom you carried out your stay(s) abroad mentioned in part (a).  This requisite will be specified in your thesis defence record.

When you apply for your doctoral degree, you should indicate whether it qualifies for the inclusion of an international doctorate certificate.