The core component of PhD training and Research Careers in the TCCM network will be the advancement of knowledge through original independent research. The Consortium will announce yearly the research topics offered through its web page, indicating the Universities of the Consortium which will be involved in its development.
The development of the TCCM-JD programme goes beyond the co-tutelle arrangements normally in use in Europe up to date, through a full integration of the research project. This will be designed and developed by two Consortium Institutions (Institution A and B) located in different countries, with the eventual participation of any of the Associated Partners. Two Professors/Researchers affiliated to Institutions A and B will act as supervisor and co-supervisor, respectively, of the Doctoral candidate, who shall spent at least 12 months in each of them. An adviser (affiliated to Institution C) will be also assigned to each candidate.
The research activity of Doctoral Candidates will be monitored annualy by the Academic Committe (AC) of the TCCM-JD and invited external experts.
Apart from this main research activity, all doctoral candidates should participate in the following activities:
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A mandatory period of training (Core Course), prior to their research activity. It will be organized in one of the Institutions of the Consortium, to be designated every two years by the International Committee on a rotating basis. The two-three weeks Core Course will be devoted to provide the student with basic and advanced research skills:
- communication in scientific research, including both scientific writing and oral presentations
- formulation of a research work plan, definition of objectives, timing, testing hypotheses
- literature review and searching of scientific information
- group working
- preparation and delivering of (written and oral) progress reports.
The Consortium will also benefit from current good practices in the different partner Universities, and will try to harmonize and coordinate its educational activities, or even integrate them or part of them in similar ones promoted by the corresponding Doctoral Schools.
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A two-day Annual workshop that will be organized every year in one of the Consortium’s countries. The aim of this workshop will be to gather together all the doctoral candidates of the Consortium and their supervisors, in a scientific meeting where the doctoral candidate will present oral communications with the results achieved in their research activity. These presentations will permit a common assessment of the activities of the candidates during that year. The Academic Committee (AC) members will carry out this assessment. To enrich the contents of these scientific meetings a number of researchers, coming from institutions outside the Consortium, will be invited to participate in these workshops. Particular importance will be assigned to the ability of the doctoral candidates to answer questions posed by the external experts for their assessment. After the workshop the AC will produce a report for each doctoral candidate indicating the strong and the weak points on his/her activity in the JDP, which will be sent to him/her and to his/her supervisors.
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A regular series of International Schools, which the Consortium foresee to organize in collaboration with CECAM, on topics closely related with the different research lines offered by the JDP, and which will be another occasion to facilitate the contact and exchange of ideas between the doctoral candidates of the programme.
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A doctoral candidate’s Forum (DCF), where the doctoral candidates can organize different types of events (scientific, cultural, etc.). The DCF will have a communication medium in the form of a Newsletter (one or two issues per year), whose editor would be a doctoral candidate, who will share the responsibility, for a period of one year, with another doctoral candidate from a different Institution, as co-editor. After this period of one year the Co-Editor will assume the role of Editor and a new co-editor, should be elected by the doctoral candidates registered in the programme. The DCF will have the possibility of organising one of the sessions of the annual workshop of the JDP, in which the doctoral candidates can discuss scientific problems and/or questions related with the functioning of the JDP, or with their own initiatives.
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Mainly in the last two years of the Doctorate studies, the doctoral candidates should actively participate in at least one International Congress or Symposium in the field of TCCM, by presenting a communication as a poster or as an oral (if accepted as such).
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In all the Institutions of the Consortium particular attention will be paid to the development by the doctoral candidates of formal supervision skills by mentoring Master students or related early-stage researchers, in the last part of their doctorate studies.
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The Consortium will encourage doctoral candidates to communicate regularly with other candidates and other supervisors by Skype/video-Skype, so scientific discussions between the candidate and both supervisors would be possible, as well as the exchange of ideas or interests with other doctoral candidates.
- The Consortium will create a TCCM Wikipedia, with shared experience and advice on computational and theoretical issues.
