Bioinformatics - Training activities

Cross-disciplinary training activities

The URV offers a range of cross-disciplinary training activities that doctoral students can choose to complement their scientific training.

These activities are common to all doctoral programmes. They broaden the knowledge of students, fostering generic skills and interdisciplinary relations between them.

See the cross-disciplinary training activities for the current academic year

Specific training activities

 COMPULSORY 

1. Development of communication skills and dissemination of research
   Each of the selection and progress review panels for the Doctoral Programme will organize annual progress review sessions that bring together doctoral students by research line. These sessions will also be used to develop students' research communication skills, which will be given particular attention during student presentations.
    
2. Assistance to working doctoral groups
   Annually, the Doctoral Programme will organize a one-day scientific workshop. The PhD student must participate in at least 2 of these workshops, presenting a poster. The aim of the workshops is to present, share and discuss the state of the research process of the thesis project in its initial, central and final stages.
    
3. Attendance at seminars or conferences given by experts in the field of knowledge
   The Doctoral Programme will organize a series of scientific seminars, at least 2 per course, in order to improve the PhD student's knowledge about the topics related to the PhD thesis research. The PhD student must attend at least 3 of these seminars per course. The seminars will be taught by researchers of international prestige, on the topics covered by the Programme.
    
4. Presentation of a communication (poster or oral) in national or international congress
   The presentation of the own investigation, as well as the discussion of it in front of a public with formation in the exposed subject, suppose one of the most useful forms of learning and improvement of the researching activity. In this sense, the framework of an international congress, dedicated specifically to the subject in which the thesis work of the PhD student is included and in which important researchers in their field of study are participating, is a fundamental test in the definitive and complete training of the future researcher.
    
5. Preparation of a research article, sent to an impact scientific journal
   The most representative results of the student will be presented in the form of a scientific article. As part of the preparation of the PhD thesis, and as a fundamental element in the development and training of future researchers, it is pertinent to work intensively on the formal and content capacity of the students of the PhD programme for the development of its optimal scientific activity within the framework of the international research community. For this, it is essential that they know the mode, the mechanisms, the tools, the expository and formal strategies and the usual requirements for the publication of a research article in indexed periodic publications.

   To complete the doctoral degree, the doctoral candidate must have at least one article accepted for publication in an international indexed scientific journal, either as the first author or with evidence confirming they are the main author of the work.

6. Preparation of a research-stay plan
   In line with recommendations from the Comisión de Verificación y Acreditación de Planes de Estudios del Consejo de Universidades, the PD in Bioinformatics actively promotes internationalization of research during the PhD studies, including research stays abroad. PhD students holding a fellowship or contract from a program offering travel bursaries will be required to fulfill, as long as it is feasible, the conditions to opt to the Mención de Doctorado Internacional. To this end, the student will need to present a research-stay plan to the program's Academic Commission during the first year.

 OPTIONAL

1. Research stays in national or foreign centers, public or private.

   In order to obtain the International Doctoral Research Recognition, during the training period required to obtain the doctoral degree, the doctoral candidate must complete a minimum stay of three months outside the Spanish State, at a prestigious higher education institution or research centre different from the one in which they have previously studied or conducted research.

   The stay and related activities must be endorsed by the thesis supervisor and authorised by the academic committee, and must be recorded in the doctoral activity document. The stay may be divided into separate periods, provided that the total duration is equal to or greater than three months and that it takes place at the same institution.

   The training period is considered from the time of admission to the doctoral programme. The programme will encourage these international stays so that, even though they are optional, they are carried out by the majority of doctoral candidates.