The PhD CTS trains professionals who are capable of developing independent, original, creative and high-quality research activities that are nationally and internationally recognised in the following areas of ICT:

• Radio Communications;
• Optical Communications;
• Signal Processing;
• Audiovisual Systems.

The doctoral theses carried out at the PhD CTS are based on the intense research activity carried out by the more than one hundred lecturers and researchers attached to it, of whom more than sixty are PhDs, almost all of them full-time. The research work and theses on offer are part of this activity, which is carried out in research groups that are fundamentally applied and oriented towards both the construction of new components and systems and the development of the techniques and tools that allow them to operate.

See '1. Admission' (to the PhD CTS) in the following section of this website, for more detailed information on its six current research lines.

The PhD CTS is taught at the Higher Technical School of Telecommunication Engineers (ETSIT) of the UPM, a centre noted for its historical activity in R&D&I, collaboration with companies, innovation activities, and participation in joint training programmes with foreign universities and in European research projects. Numerous PhD of the ETSIT have been awarded a mention of excellence, according to the nomenclature prior to Royal Decree 99/2011, or are currently accredited by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA). The initial verification report of the PhD CTS earned it the accreditation of the ANECA on 25-09-2013, thanks to which the degree acquired official status by the agreement adopted by the Council of Ministers on 21-02-2014 (BOE of 11-03-2014), and is registered in the Register of Universities, Centres and Degrees (RUCT) with the code 5600656.

In 2021, the PhD CTS passed the periodic renewal process of its accreditation, which is in charge of the madri+d Knowledge Foundation:

1. At the beginning of April, a self-assessment report was sent to madri+d together with 48 ‘evidences’: tables and documents containing a multitude of data to support the justifications of the assessments of the various criteria and guidelines.
2. This report was evaluated by a panel of experts, who at the end of June held several meetings (telematic, due to CoViD-19) with the main actors of the PhD CTS, during which they asked numerous questions.
3. At the end of October, the panel issued an interim report 'favourable to the renewal of accreditation’ which nevertheless pointed out certain ‘necessary modifications’ subject to ‘special monitoring’.
4. At the end of November, an improvement plan was submitted to madri+d on the requested modifications, which were almost immediately implemented through changes to this website and to the DSSR personnel website.
5. At the end of January 2022, the panel issued the corresponding final report for 'accreditation renewal in FAVOURABLE terms' (without any further remarks, i.e., no mention of any future 'special monitoring').

As established in the RD99/2011, each PhD CTS student must submit annually an updated version of their Activities Document (AD), which summarises their Formative Activities (FA) since the beginning of their studies in the PhD CTS, and the necessary documentation to accredit the completion of these FAs. Although the AD is the responsibility of each PhD student, it is very important that it is supervised by their thesis advisor(s) and academic tutor before it is submitted.

The submission of the AD for each academic year is synchronised with the submission of the corresponding annual research plan (see next section). The EID UPM sets the deadlines for the submission of research plans, with the first deadline usually falling in July for ordinary submissions and the second deadline reserved for extraordinary submissions to correct errors. As far as the submission of the AD is concerned, the PhD student must be registered in the PhD CTS Moodle 'course', which is more of a document repository, in order to 'upload' their AD by completing the corresponding task.

PhD CTS students must also prepare an annual research plan describing the activity carried out during the previous year and the planning of the next one, which must be registered in the UPM THESIS application. The thesis advisor(s) must then validate it in this same application so that it can finally be evaluated and approved by the AC-PhD CTS.

It is important to bear in mind that the title of the thesis that appears in (the successive versions of) this research plan is, a priori, the definitive one: if the PhD student wants to change it, he/she must request it via THESIS.

All UPM PhD students must renew their enrolment annually between September and October (as determined by UPM).

As mentioned in section ‘3. Initial enrolment’ of the previous subsection, full-time students can do it by themselves through the UPM Self-Enrolment application, but part-time students must do it in person at the ETSIT Secretary's Office (in the case of the PhD CTS).

IMPORTANT NOTE
Desde enero de 2023, la EID UPM exige que las solicitudes de evaluación previa y depósito de tesis se cursen vía THESIS, pero los trámites descritos a continuación siguen siendo necesarios en el PD TSC, y se debe escribir a <pd.tsc@upm.es> para pedir instrucciones actualizadas antes de solicitar vía THESIS la “Evaluación previa al depósito”.

According to the UPM's Regulations for the preparation and evaluation of PhD theses, in order to be able to submit a thesis, the PhD student must have approved the last annual research plan and have passed the FA. Articles 15 et seq. of Part III of these regulations explain how the PhD student, once he/she has finished writing the thesis, must notify his/her AC-PhD, enclosing a report from his/her advisor(s) authorising the submission of the thesis, and go through a series of stages to guarantee its quality through one of several possible mechanisms. In the PhD CTS the quality assurance mechanism chosen is that of an external expert report, so the PhD student must obtain three further favourable reports for the submission of his/her thesis, issued by three experts. At least two of them must be external to the UPM, and only one may be or have been a member of the research group in which the thesis has been prepared. In addition, if the PhD student applies for the mention ‘International Doctorate’ for his/her thesis, he/she must meet with the requirements of Article 33 of Part IV of the above-mentioned regulations.

The PhD student must update his/her CV in the UPM Scientific Portal so that the AC-PhD CTS and the administrative staff of the EID UPM can evaluate his/her publications and patents, and request the 'Pre-deposit evaluation' via THESIS. Before doing the latter, you must complete the chained task list ‘External expert reports’ of the PhD CTS Moodle 'course' (see section '5. Activities document'), to submit:

• A report from your thesis advisor(s) authorising your submission.
• Your updated AD, including the necessary supporting documents to demonstrate that you have 200 hours of recognised FA.
• The publication required by the quality criteria for UPM PhD theses. NB: in addition to this UPM requirement, the PhD CTS also requires that the PhD student must be listed as first or second author of the publication.
• Your proposal of three expert reviewers, attaching a brief description of each one, and justifying why he/she is suitable to review that particular thesis. NB: one of the requirements of the UPM in order to obtain the mention ‘International Doctorate’ is that the thesis has been positively evaluated by two experts working outside Spain, so if you plan to request this mention in the next step (see section ‘9. Application for the thesis presentation approval’), it makes sense to propose two experts belonging to foreign universities/companies in this step.
• An almost final version of your thesis, without incorporating the potential changes requested/suggested by the experts.

If the AC-PhD approves this list of experts, it sends each of them a copy of the thesis and a model report to be completed and returned to the AC-PhD. The reports received are evaluated by the AC-PhD and, later on, attached to the rest of the documentation that must be submitted in order to deposit the thesis: see section ‘10. Thesis registration and deposit'.

IMPORTANT NOTE
Desde enero de 2023, la EID UPM exige que las solicitudes de evaluación previa y depósito de tesis se cursen vía THESIS, pero los trámites descritos a continuación siguen siendo necesarios en el PD TSC, y se debe escribir a <pd.tsc@upm.es> para pedir instrucciones actualizadas antes de solicitar vía THESIS el “Depósito de tesis”.

Once the quality assurance phase of their PhD thesis has been passed (through the mechanism of external expert reports, in the case of the PhD CTS), PhD students can request that their thesis be admitted for defence, and propose a panel, advised by their advisor(s). The PhD student submits his or her requests (for the presentation of the thesis and the panel for its defence) to the AC-PhD CTS, which, if approved, forwards them on to the Doctoral Area Committee (DAC) of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) of the EID UPM, which finally authorises the deposit and defence of the thesis. It is therefore advisable for the PhD student to be familiar with both the doctoral regulations and the meeting schedule of the ICT DAC.

The examining board must be composed of seven members, five full members and two substitutes, who must meet with the following requirements:

• They must all be PhD holders and accredit research experience: see Article 14 of RD99/2011.
• No more than two members may come from the same university: see Article 22 of the UPM's Regulations for the preparation and evaluation of PhD theses.
• When applying for the ‘International Doctorate’ mention, one of the full members must belong to a foreign institution and cannot be the person responsible for the stay required to qualify for this mention.

The PhD student must apply for the ‘Thesis deposit’ via THESIS, before which he/she must complete the chained task list ‘Thesis submission and examining board’ of the PhD CTS Moodle 'course' (see section '5. Activities document'), to submit:

• Your proposal for the examining board.
• The document of agreement of each of the seven proposed members of the examining board.
• In case of applying for the mention ‘International Doctorate’ (see UPM requirements), the proof of the corresponding international stay, and the CV of the two experts from foreign institutions who positively evaluated the thesis.

Once the AC-PhD CTS authorization has been obtained for the presentation of the PhD thesis, the PhD student must carry out the following procedures with the help of the administrative staff of the ETSIT and the EID UPM:

1. Pay the corresponding fees for the defence of the thesis, for which it is logically necessary to be already enrolled in that course, and up to date with the payment of the academic tutorships.
2. If you wish to apply for the mention ‘International Doctorate’, in addition to the application itself, you must provide:
   • The two original reports of the foreign evaluators, and a copy of their CVs: see section ‘8. Reports on the thesis quality’.
   • Proof(s) of the international stay(s) carried out.

Once accepted, the PhD thesis is deposited for 15 days (calendar days, but not counting the month of August, which is not a working period for these purposes). Once the deposit period has elapsed without any observations, or once any observations have been resolved, the ICT DAC, at its next meeting, authorises the defence of the thesis and appoints the examining board to assess it.

The PhD thesis is assessed at its defence, which must be convened by the chairman of the examining board and communicated by its secretary to the other members sufficiently in advance, bearing in mind that it must be held within a maximum period of three months from the appointment of the examining board.

The defence consists of a public session during which the PhD student presents and defends the research work to the examining board. Each member of the board is entitled to express his/her opinion and ask the PhD student any questions he/she deems appropriate. The PhD students present at the public event may ask questions at the time and in the manner indicated by the chair of the panel.

At the conclusion of the defence and discussion of the dissertation, each member of the examining board gives a written assessment of the thesis, after which the examining board issues a report and the overall mark awarded to the thesis according to the following scale: fail, pass, merit, and distinction. In the latter case, each member of the examining board also casts a secret vote proposing that the thesis be awarded a ‘cum laude’ mention. These votes are placed in an envelope that remains sealed and signed on the flap by all members of the examining board, until the AC-PhD CTS opens it at its next meeting to count the secret votes: the ‘cum laude’ mention is awarded if all of them are in favour of it.

Finally, if the thesis is accepted, the PhD student must fill in, following the instructions of the administrative staff of the PhD CTS, the corresponding form in the national database of PhD theses TESEO.

In addition to the seminars offered within the PhD CTS itself, courses offered by other departments and schools of the UPM, and in particular those of its International Doctoral School (EID), are considered. It is recommended that each seminar attended has a maximum duration of 30 hours, and that the PhD student completes most of the 120 hours (as a minimum) to be taken in the first two years of the PhD CTS, but the choice of seminar content is left to the discretion of the PhD student and his/her thesis advisor(s), who must guide the student in his/her scientific training, both specific and transversal.

The specific training seminars are related to the research lines of the PhD CTS (see section '1. Admission') and are given by professors or researchers, both from the PhD itself and from outside. The transversal seminars may cover topics such as bibliographic research, project planning or oral and written communication for the presentation of research articles: see for example the offer of FA of the EID UPM.

In any case, after attending one or more seminars, each doctoral student must apply to the CAPD TSC for the recognition of the hours certified by their organizers. The CAPD analyses each case in order to verify whether the seminar is intrinsically designed for doctoral students, or whether it has a clear research orientation, in accordance with level 4 of the Spanish Qualification Framework for Higher Education (MECES), equivalent to the third cycle of the QF-EHEA of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Again, the experience of the thesis advisor(s) plays a very important role in ensuring that the PhD student does not embark on seminars whose hours will not be recognized by the AC-PhD CTS.

The objective of this FA is twofold: on the one hand, the PhD student must make a contribution that expands the frontiers of knowledge through original research, and on the other hand, he/she must be able to communicate this contribution to the academic and scientific community. This communication improves their scientific writing skills, as well as the written and oral presentation of their research work.

In addition, when writing a scientific article, PhD students must work closely with their thesis advisor, who first suggests and proposes new ideas so that the student can find out where their contribution comes from, and then supervises the writing of the article and its presentation, continuously correcting every detail.

It is recommended that each PhD student publishes at least one scientific article per year in a prestigious international journal or conference, and the AC-PhD CTS can recognise up to 90 hours (max. 30 hrs/year) for this activity. During the first years of their studies, PhD students are not obliged to publish articles, especially in journals, but during the last years of their studies they are obliged to do so by UPM's regulations, as can be seen above in section ‘9. Application for the thesis presentation approval’ . According to the UPM's quality criteria for PhD theses, the PhD student must appear with the affiliation “Universidad Politécnica de Madrid” as the author of an article already published or accepted for publication in a Journal Citation Reports (JCR) journal, and ranked at least in the third quartile (Q3) of its category.

This FA takes into account the completion of one or more stays in foreign research centres and is particularly recommended in the second and third years of the PhD CST. The maximum of 480 hours recognized by the AC-PhD CTS for this FA corresponds to a total stay of ninety days, which is the minimum required to apply for the 'International PhD' mention (NB: three months may not be sufficient).

In order to make it easier for part-time students to complete this FA, stays during the summer months, which coincide with the most common holiday period, and the possibility of carrying them out over several consecutive years are envisaged.

The control procedure for this FA consists of two phases:

1. Before the stay, the PhD student must apply to the AC-PhD CTS for authorization to carry it out, submitting a proposed work plan that must be approved by his/her thesis advisor, and also enclosing the letter of admission to the foreign research centre.
2. After the stay, the PhD student must submit a report in English on the tasks carried out and the results obtained. If a scientific article has been published as a result of this international collaboration, this report can be replaced by the article(s) in question.