Doctoral program in Engineering and Applied Sciences

Objectives and competences

Objectives and competences

Objectives

The aim of the PhD Programme in Engineering and Applied Sciences is to train PhDs who can tackle and solve the problems demanded by industry, the administration and society in general, promoting research, development and scientific-technological innovation, both at a fundamental and applied level in these areas. Professionals in this field, whether from the industrial or scientific side, are versatile to tackle applied research challenges in a scientific-technological environment that requires work in an environment of research teams with a large interdisciplinary component.

Competences

Doctoral studies guarantee, as a minimum, the acquisition by the doctoral candidate of the following basic competences as well as those others that appear in the Spanish Higher Education Qualifications Framework:
a) Systematic understanding of a field of study and mastery of the skills and research methods related to this field.
b) Ability to conceive, design or create, implement and adopt a substantial research or creative process.
c) Ability to contribute to extending the frontiers of knowledge through original research.
d) Ability to carry out critical analysis and evaluation and synthesis of new and complex ideas.
e) Ability to communicate with the academic and scientific community and society in general about their areas of knowledge in the ways and languages commonly used in the international scientific community.
f) Ability to promote, in academic and professional contexts, scientific, technological, social, artistic or cultural progress in a knowledge-based society.
g) Ability to promote Open Science and Citizen Science as a way to contribute to the consideration of scientific knowledge as a common good.

Admission pathways

Access

In general, to access an official doctorate program you must have an official Spanish bachelor's degree, or equivalent, and a university master's degree and have passed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits in all university degree and master's studies. It can also be accessed by anyone who is in any of these cases:

      
• Be in possession of official Spanish university degrees or equivalent Spanish degrees, provided that at least 300 ECTS credits have been passed in the set of these courses, accrediting level 3 of the Spanish Qualification Framework for Higher Education.

      
• Be in possession of a title obtained in accordance with foreign educational systems belonging to the European Higher Education Area (EEES), without the need for it to be approved, which accredits a level 7 of the European Qualifications Framework, provided that this title is valid for to access doctoral studies in the country of dispatch. This admission does not imply, in any case, the approval of the previous title that the interested party is in possession of or the recognition for other purposes than that of accessing doctoral studies.

      
• Be in possession of a degree obtained in accordance with foreign educational systems outside the EEES, without the need for it to be approved, after verification by the University of Barcelona that this degree accredits a level of training equivalent to the official Spanish master's degree university and which, in the country of dispatch, entitles you to access doctoral studies. This admission does not imply, in any case, the approval of the previous title that the interested party is in possession of or the recognition for other purposes than that of accessing doctoral studies.

      
• Be in possession of another doctoral degree.

      
• Equally, university graduates who, after obtaining a place in training through the corresponding test for access to specialized health training places, have passed with a positive evaluation at least two years of training in a program to obtain the title, can access official of one of the specialties in health sciences.

      
• The graduates, architects or engineers who were in possession of the diploma of advanced studies obtained in accordance with what was established in Royal Decree 778/1998, of April 30, or who had reached the research sufficiency regulated in Royal Decree 185/ 1985, of January 23.

Admission requirements

The program's academic committee has agreed on the following specific admission requirements, taking into account the established access routes:

To be admitted to the program, students must hold one of the following degrees:

1. Official University Master's Degree from the University of Barcelona (UB) in:
¿ Environmental Engineering
¿ Biomedical Engineering
¿ Photonics, Nanophotonics, and Biophotonics Engineering
¿ Chemical Engineering
¿ Artificial Intelligence
¿ Applied Materials Chemistry
¿ Advanced Physics
¿ Renewable Energies and Energy Sustainability
¿ Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
¿ Electrochemistry: Science and Technology

2. Master's Degree awarded by a higher education institution within the European Higher Education Area that the program's academic committee considers to be of the same level and to offer research-oriented training equivalent to that of the Master's degrees mentioned in section 1.

3. Degree awarded under an educational system outside the European Higher Education Area, without requiring official recognition, that certifies a level of training equivalent to The master's programs mentioned in section 1.

4. English proficiency. Students must demonstrate a sufficient level of English (level B2), which must be accredited. If this is not possible, accreditation may be provided through an interview with a person designated by the Doctoral Program's Academic Committee to assess the student's English level.

Criteria for evaluating candidates
The program's academic committee established the following protocol for weighting candidates applying for admission to the program.

ADMISSION PROTOCOL

1. Objective
To establish an objective system for evaluating and ranking candidates based on their merits and requirements, thus facilitating admission decisions when the number of applicants exceeds the number of available places.

2. Weighting Procedure

1. Definition of Criteria:
¿ Identify the relevant requirements and merits for admission, in accordance with the verification report.
¿ Assign a numerical weight to each criterion according to its importance.

2. Information Gathering:
¿ Information is gathered from the documentation submitted by the candidate through the admissions application developed by the UB Doctoral School (EDUB).

3. Evaluation:
¿ Apply the weighting criteria to each candidate.
¿ Calculate each candidate's total score by adding the points obtained for each criterion.

4. Ranking and Selection:
¿ Rank the candidates according to their total score, from highest to lowest.
¿ Select the candidates with the highest scores until all available places are filled. ¿ Publish the list for each registration period

3. Weighting Rubrics

¿ Candidate's entry qualification, academic record, and merits: 60%

¿ Suitability of entry qualification: 20%
- Bachelor's degree in the program's field: 10%
- Bachelor's degree in a related field: 5%
- Master's degree in the program's field: 10%
- Master's degree in a related field: 5%

¿ Academic record: 30%
- Undergraduate qualifications: 20% (on a scale of 10: 5-7 up to 10%, 7-9 up to 16%, 9-10 up to 20%). Other qualification scales: equivalency applies).
* - Master's qualifications: 10% (on a scale of 10: 5-7 up to 5%, 7-9 up to 8%, 9-10 up to 10%). Other qualification scales: equivalency applies.

¿Academic merits: 10%
- Publications and/or conferences during previous studies (up to 10%)
- Teaching experience (upto 5%)
- Bachelor's or Master's awards (up to 10%)

¿Curriculum vitae: 20%
- Cover letter: up to 10%
- Soft skills: up to 10%

¿English: 15%
- Level B2 or equivalent: up to 10%
- Level C1 or higher: up to 15%

¿Recommendations: 5%
- Letters of recommendation: up to 5%

Enrolment

You can find all the information and enrolment prices at the Doctoral School

Lines of research and teaching staff

Research lines

• 101246 - Materials science and technology
  
  Research into the design, synthesis, characterization and transformation processes and application of metallic, ceramic, polymeric and hybrid materials.
  
  
• 101242 - Computer sciences
  
  Research in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Graphics and Human-Machine Interaction.
  
  
• 101241 - Photovoltaics
  
  Research into materials and manufacturing and characterization techniques for photovoltaic devices.
  
  
• 101244 - Biomedical engineering
  
  Research into the design, development, optimization and application of devices, systems, instrumentation, data analysis and biomedical technologies.
  
  
• 101243 - Electronic engineering
  
  Research in the design, development, optimization and application of circuits, electronic systems, instrumentation, communications, sensors and signal and data processing.
  
  
• 101245 - Chemical engineering
  
  Research in wastewater treatment, including biological processes, advanced oxidation and membranes, in process modeling, in the rheological study of colloidal systems and in catalysis for the production of bioproducts and biofuels.
  
  
• 101247 - Interfaces and colloids
  

Teachers

Research plan and progress reports

You can find all the information at the following links:

• Research Plan
• Activities document
• Annual monitoring report and evaluation and DADDAD
• Guide to good practice in doctoral thesis supervision and tutoring
• Code of good practices of the Doctoral School of the University of Barcelona

Training activities

List of training activities specific to the program:
Each year the doctoral program makes a proposal for training activities specific to the
program that can complement the students' training.
2020-21: MATLAB course

Other transversal trainings:
The training capsules suggested by the IDP - ICE and the training indicated by each director of
thesis

Training Activities
 

Doctoral thesis

Theses subject to data protection: Yes
Schedule of theses readings of the program: This schedule is on the website of each faculty of
enrollment in the doctoral program (Faculty of Chemistry, Faculty of Physics and Faculty of
Mathematics and Computer Science

Thesis publications: TDX

Thesis

Career opportunities

What can you work on ?

A doctor trained in the Engineering and Applied Sciences programme will be able to develop his/her professional career both at an academic level and in technological and research centres and in industry, as on many occasions the application of the research developed in the doctoral thesis will have an almost direct application in an industrial field.

Contact us

PhD coordination: jlabanda@ub.edu

Phone: 934031334