Regulations

These Regulations are valid since November 1^st 2019 and apply to all students enrolled in the Doctoral Program. For all the issues that are not explicitly mentioned here, please refer to the regulations of the Doctoral School of Politecnico di Torino.

Supervisor

The Supervisor of each new PhD student is appointed in the first two months of the cycle by the PhD Academic Board. The Supervisor is chosen among the members of the Board or among the researchers in the area of Physics at Politecnico di Torino. For students on external fellowships a co-supervisor can be nominated even among researchers belonging to other Universities or Research Centers. Possible changes of the Supervisor are normally evaluated and approved by the PhD Academic Board by the beginning of the second year.   

Training requirements

The minimum training activity required for each student consists of 200 hours of hard skills courses, and 40 hours of soft skills courses. Among the hard skills, at least 80 hours must be chosen among the courses offered by the PhD programme in Physics and other 25 compulsory ones are associated with the Seminar course; the remaining 95 hours can be chosen among courses pertaining to the PhD programme in Physics or to other PhD programmes, Bachelor courses (1st level), Master degree (2^nd  level) courses ^[1]  or courses from national / international schools ^[2]. At least 80 hours of courses must be attended within the first year and a further 80 hours within the second year. The training requirement must be evaluated on an individual basis for students following international / inter-university curricula.

Study Plan 

By the end of the first quarter of the 1st year, each student has to send her/his study plan (annex A) by e-mail ^[3], for approval by the PhD Academic Board. The plan is prepared according to the following requirements:

1. it must include a minimum of 80 hours of hard skills courses of the PhD in Physics of Politecnico di Torino, belonging to at least two different macro-areas^[4]; 40 hours of third-level transversal courses (soft skills), 25 hours of seminar courses and 50 hours of hard skills courses chosen by the student, also among the 1^st level (i.e. Bachelor degree) and  2^nd  level (i.e. Master degree) courses ^[5];
2. the remaining 45 hours of third-level hard skills courses can be specified later, with the approval of the Supervisor;
3. at least 160 hours of courses are to be attended within the first two years, and in particular at least 80 hours in the first year; of these, at least 60 hours should be hard skills.

Any changes and additions to the study plan should be presented by the student for approval by the PhD Academic Board within the first quarter of each year.

Enrolment to subsequent year

By the end of each year the student is required to prepare a report (annex B) on the activity she/he has carried out.A necessary requirement for the enrolment to the 3^rd is to have produced, in the first two years, at least one article^[6] in a scientific journal belonging to the area of Physics ^[7] in which the affiliation to the Department must be specified, and to complete the thesis project (see below). The students will have to illustrate the presented material to the PhD Academic Board, during an interview. The PhD Academic Board - after prior verification of the fulfilment of the minimum training requirements and the favorable opinion of the Supervisor - decides on the admission of each student to the following year.

Thesis

One month before the end of the 2nd year, the student must send by email  to the PhD Academic Board a thesis project (annex Thesis project form), which she/he then presents for the admission to the third year. One month before the end of the last year the student must send a first draft of the thesis by e-mail.

Off-site activities

By the end of the 3rd year each student must spend at least 70 certified mission days in Universities and Research Centers outside the Region ^[8]; of Piedmont; to this end, the participation to schools and international conferences for a minimum period of 3 consecutive days will be taken into account, as well as the participation to activities related to off-site research projects for at least 3 days in total, even if not consecutive. The period spent by the PhD student for study or research purposes in other universities, research institutions, centres and laboratories,  should not exceed 18 months.

Admission to the final exam

In order to be eligible for admission to the final exam at the end of the 3^rd year, each student must fulfill the minimum training requirements specified above and, in addition, must be co-author of at least 2 articles ^[9] published or accepted ^[10] in physics journals (read footnote 7) listed in the “Web of Science” or  “SCOPUS” international databases. The articles must be produced during the three years of the PhD course and must specify the affiliation to the Department of Applied Science and Technology of Politecnico di Torino. In order to be evaluated for the admission to the final exam, students must send their dissertation and the final report (annex C) to the Academic Board. Each student then discusses his/her thesis before the Academic Board which, after verifying the favorable opinion of the Supervisor (and co- Supervisor), decides on the admission.   

Accounting of the PhD candidate's activity

With respect to the regulations adopted by Politecnico di Torino for the activity accounting, some further specifications have been introduced by the Academic Board for PhD candidates in Physics:

• As far as the training activities are concerned, the minimum requirement for hard skills is increased to 200 hours, identified as above;
• In determining R only the articles published in WoS and / or Scopus journals count; we assume N = 2 for every N> 2; the alpha parameter is set to 100;
• The minimum requirement for R is increased to 100;
• As for the indicator of off-site activities, a minimum requirement is introduced, Re = 14, with the exception of what specified in note 8.

Footnotes

^[1] Up to a maximum of 50 equivalent hours (see curriculum);

^[2] A maximum of 30 hours per course/school and a maximum of 6 hours a day are counted;

^[3]  To contact us:  phd.physics@polito.it (Coordinator);  tiziana.marangoni@polito.it (Secretary for PhD in Physics, for all the administrative issues); 

^[4] The macro-areas are: “Experimental Physics of Matter”; “Theoretical Physics of Matter”, “Physics of Complex Systems"; “High Energy Physics”. 

^[5] For 1st level and 2nd level courses, a conversion factor is applied according to Scudo regulations;

^[6] The article can be a preprint submitted to a journal or to arxiv.org;

^[7] In case the archive or the journal where the paper is submitted to does not belong to the area of physics, the Academic Board will evaluate the relevance of the proposed manuscript to the general subject of physics;

^[8] This requirement does not apply to foreign students and/or to students having a master degree attained abroad;

^[9]  A pending patent counts as a publication;

^[10] A copy of the accepted, though not yet published paper, should be sent to the Academic Board, together with a copy of the acceptance letter.

Annexes

• Annex A
• Annex B
• Annex C
• Annex Thesis project form
• Annex Quality Award                                

Study plan

Within the first 3 months after the beginning of the PhD, each student is required to prepare her/his study plan and to send it by email to the PhD Academic Board for approval. Any changes and additions to the study plan should be presented by the student for approval by the PhD Academic Board within the quarter of each academic year.

Requirements

• 80 hours of Hard Skills (HD) from the courses of the PhD in Physics, belonging to at least two different macro-areas; 
• 60 hours of Hard Skills and 20 hours of Soft Skills (SS) within the first year;
• 160 hours (HD+SS) within the second year;
• 2nd level (i.e. Master degree) courses are eligible up to a maximum of 50 equivalent hours;
• Schools are eligible up to a maximum of 30 hours per school and 6 hours per day;
• 65 off-site certified working days.

Publications

• For the enrolment to the third year the student is required to have at least 1 publication (or a pre-print) in a physics area journal;
• For admission to the final exam the student is required to have at least two accepted publications with DISAT affiliation.

Presentation before the PhD Academic Board

• For the enrolment to the subsequent year (or for admission to the final exam) each student is required to give an oral presentation before PhD academic Board.

Upload of the thesis on the dashboard

• Within 6 months after the completion of the PhD programme, the final version of the PhD thesis must have been upload onto the online dashboard.

^{(*) If motivated reasons are existing, the PhD candidate may exceptionally request the PhD Academic Board to post-pone the deadline for the  delivery of the thesis by a maximal period of 6 months (without extension of the PhD grant). Such request, if approved, implies that the PhD Academic Board will deliberate about the admission to the final exam in a subsequent meeting session, when the thesis has been completed.}