Doctoral Program in Systems and Informatics Engineering 2024–2025

The RD 99/2011 highlights the high professional training of doctors in various fields, especially those that require creativity and innovation. Therefore, the doctors of the program will have acquired, at least, personal skills and abilities to:

1. Develop in contexts in which there is little specific information.
2. Find the key questions that must be answered to solve a complex problem.
3. Design, create, develop and undertake innovative and innovative projects in their field of knowledge.
4. Work both as a team and independently in an international or multidisciplinary context.
5. Integrate knowledge, face complexity and formulate judgements with limited information.
6. The criticism and intellectual defence of solutions.

The requirements for access to doctoral studies are set by the RD 99/2011, of 28 January. In general, access to the programme is open to those who hold an official Spanish Bachelor's and Master's degree or equivalent, having passed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits in these two degrees.

Students with a foreign degree issued by a country included in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) may apply for admission directly (info). If the degree was issued by a non-EHEA country, the application for admission with a foreign degree that has not been recognised (info) must be submitted.

Interested parties can find more information about acceso and admission at the Doctoral School section and at the administrative office of the programme (see contact details in the general information section of the programme).

Interested students can obtain further information about

Admission profile:

The recommended access to this PhD Program is for students who have completed a Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering, Computer Engineering or Telecommunication Engineering. Although the preferred profile is that of Systems Engineering and Computer Science, students coming from other studies may also be accepted, provided that they accredit Master's level education in at least one of the research lines of the PhD Program.

Admission to the PhD program of Systems Engineering and Computer Science

In order to start PhD studies it is required to be accepted by the Academic Committee of the PhD program. The student is required to apply for admission to the Academic Committee of the program, within the period established annually in the academic calendar. General information on the management of the admission process is available at the following link.

In order to apply to the PhD program in Systems Engineering and Computer Science, the student must submit the following documentation:

• Admission application for the PhD program using the official form of the PhD School.
• ID or Passport
• University Master's Degree
• Title prior to the University Master's Degree (Bachelor's Degree)
• A letter of motivation that includes the research line of the PhD program in which you intend to work  (list of research lines), and signed by a supervisor from the Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering (list of professors).
• Certificate of grades from Master's studies
• Certificate of grades from Bachelor Degree's studies
• Other merits (Curriculum Vitae, etc...)
• When applicable, application for part-time acceptance, properly justified and indicating the type of activity performed simultaneously with the completion of the PhD thesis.

Selection criteria:

If there are more applications than available positions, the weighting of the acceptance criteria will be as follows:
• Adaptation applicant profile to the PhD program 60%
• Academic record 40%

In view of the application for acceptance to the PhD program, the Academic Committee of the program will determine the additional methodological or scientific training required to be admitted to the PhD program, and if necessary, the requirement of meeting additional requirements, including, exceptionally specific tests.

Doctoral students, as researchers in training and students of the University of Zaragoza, must register annually with the corresponding fees for the academic supervision of the doctoral programme while they continue their doctoral training. The enrolment period will be the one established for this purpose in the calendar of the corresponding academic year.

As a general rule, enrolment will be done online through the Virtual Secretariat of the University of Zaragoza, having previously obtained a personal identification number (PIN) and password from the identity management service of the University of Zaragoza. Those who are unable to enrol online will be allowed to do so in person by going to the Doctoral School Section during opening hours. For the first, second and subsequent enrolments, doctoral students will have to present various documents about their previous studies, depending on whether they have been studied in countries within or outside the European Education Area.

The website of the Doctoral School provides complete and updated information about the enrolment procedure including key points, prices, discounts and insurance,  legalisation and translation of documents and various practical details.

The procedures for the supervision of students on the programme are set out in article 11 of Royal Decree 99/2011 regulating doctoral studies. Thesis supervision is also covered by Title I of the Regulations on Doctoral Theses of the University of Zaragoza.

Doctoral students admitted to the programme will register annually for academic supervision at the University of Zaragoza. The academic committee of the programme will assign a thesis supervisor and a tutor, who may or may not coincide. The thesis supervisor will be responsible for the overall management of the student's research tasks, for the coherence and suitability of the training activities, for the impact and novelty of the subject matter of the doctoral thesis in his/her field, and for guiding the planning and, where appropriate, its adaptation to that of other projects and activities in which the student is enrolled. The tutor is responsible for ensuring that the training and research activity is in line with the principles of the programme and the Doctoral School and will ensure the interaction of the PhD student with the programme's Academic Committee, the body responsible for supervising the progress of the research and training and for authorising the presentation of the thesis of each PhD student on the programme.

The supervision of doctoral students will be set out in the Doctoral Charter which, once enrolment has been completed, will be signed by the doctoral student, his/her tutor and supervisor, the programme coordinator and the director of the School for Doctoral Studies. For further information on thesis supervision, please contact the programme's administrative office (see contact details in the programme's general information) or the programme coordinator.

The mechanisms for monitoring doctoral students are in accordance with the provisions of Article 11. Doctoral supervision and monitoring of RD 99/2011, of 28 January, which regulates official doctoral studies.

Before the end of the first year of enrolment, the PhD student must present a document that includes the research plan and the personal training plan. This may be improved and detailed throughout their stay on the programme and must be endorsed by the supervisor and tutor.

The research plan shall include, at least, the methodology to be used and the objectives to be achieved, as well as the means and timetable for achieving them.

The personal training plan will contain a forecast of the different training activities to be carried out during the doctoral thesis (courses, seminars, mobility actions, etc.).

The activities document is the record of all the activities - stays, courses, attendance at conferences, etc. - that the PhD student carries out from enrolment in the doctoral programme until the submission of the doctoral thesis.

These documents, as well as the director's and tutor's reports, are managed through the doctoral management application, SIGMA.

The academic committee of the programme will annually evaluate the progress of the doctoral student in terms of his/her research plan and the activities document together with the reports that the director and tutor must issue for this purpose. A positive evaluation will be a prerequisite for continuing on the programme. In the event of a negative evaluation, the PhD student must be evaluated again within a maximum period of six months. In the event that significant shortcomings continue to occur, the Academic Committee must issue a reasoned report, after hearing the interested party, and the doctoral student will be definitively withdrawn from the programme.

Once the thesis has been completed, the PhD student must proceed to its deposit and defence in accordance with the provisions set out in the thesis regulations of the University of Zaragoza and in the procedure that develops it, available on the EDUZ regulations website

The Doctoral School of the University of Zaragoza offers its doctoral students various transversal training activities focused on facilitating the acquisition of the necessary skills to actively participate in the knowledge society and to successfully manage in a complex and changing labour market. The activities in module 1, Communication skills, help PhD students to effectively disseminate research and its results and to share knowledge in an attractive way, both in writing and orally. Module 2, Scientific Information Management, provides training in searching, processing and managing bibliographic information. Module 3 includes activities that improve the doctoral student's readiness to manage in a professional environment. The activities in module 4, Research and Society, provide doctoral students with a space for reflection on issues of interest to participate fully and responsibly in today's diverse, digital and global society. Module 5 contains activities on instrumental or technical aspects necessary to apply cutting-edge research methodologies.

The training offer is completed with online activities for all G9 doctoral students, teaching and research training activities organised by the Institute of Education Sciences of the University of Zaragoza and with those carried out within the framework of inter-university and international Doctoral Conferences.

The complete offer for each academic year is published here.

Seminars Calendar

• DIIS news (research Seminars)
• It is mandatory  to fill each activity in your DAD, attaching a document that justifies the activity.

Evaluation and dissemination of research

Mandatory 10 hours, for the total duration of the PhD

Traininig for research

32 mandatory hours, for the total duration of the PhD (A minimum of 3 different activities is established. The goal is not to concentrate all the hours on a single activity. An activity made up of several related and consecutive talks, courses and workshops over time, such as summer schools and conference cycles, is considered as a single activity..) 

* If a course is made up of several independent talks or research seminars separated in time, each talk or seminar will be treated as an independent activity, which must be justified by means of an original summary, written by the student, of at least half a page.

* The number of hours counted for a specific activity may be partial, and not total, with respect to the number of hours of the specific activity, depending on its relationship with the research concept. Consult, in case of doubt, with the Coordinator of the Doctoral Program before carrying out the activity.

* It is recalled that the activities to be accounted for must be related and valued from the point of view of research. Therefore, innovation activities are not counted.

International Mention

Mobility is mandatory to obtain the international mention, and highly recommended, in any case.

Duration: 3 months to obtain international mention.

Goal: Stay in prestigious external centers to carry out some research activity directly related to the thesis or any other topic of interest for the doctoral student's training.

Sequencing: It is recommended to do it during the second or third year of development of the thesis. 

Request: The stay must be authorized before its completion by the Academic Committee (Research stay form)

Justification: Report of the activity in the DAD.

The following section mentions the aids and procedures.

Doctoral students enrolled on doctoral programmes benefit from the mobility grants established in various national and international calls for applications. The calls of the Erasmus+ programme stand out. In the Modality Erasmus+ Studies, doctoral students can choose from a wide range of destinations as most of the agreements signed by the University of Zaragoza with other universities include places for doctoral students from all branches.

This mobility is carried out in accordance with the procedure Q-312_1. Procedure for the Management of the International Mobility of Undergraduate, Master and PhD Students.

With regard to the Erasmus+ Internships mode, doctoral students have access to two calls: the University of Zaragoza's own call and the one carried out by the Campus Iberus of International Excellence for the universities that are part of it, including Zaragoza.

Other interesting mobility calls are the Erasmus+ Short Mobility, the UNITA mobility, the external internships, those specifically aimed at Ibero-American students and those that finance international stays for pre-doctoral students, among others.

The mobility of doctoral students at the University of Zaragoza is also encouraged through the signing of co-supervision agreements with several foreign universities.

The Doctoral School of the University of Zaragoza has rules, regulations and procedures to facilitate the achievement of its various objectives. It is worth highlighting the Internal Regulations of the Doctoral School, the Instruction of the Doctoral School: Requirements for access, admission, dedication and permanence in the doctoral studies of the University of Zaragoza adapted to R.D. 99/2011. 99/2011; the Procedure for the elaboration of the Report on the Quality of Doctoral Studies and its different Programmes (ICED); the Code of Good Practices for the School and the doctoral programmes; the Doctoral Charter; the Procedure and model agreement to request the mention of doctorate industrial in the thesis or the Regulation of extraordinary doctoral awards. The aforementioned documents, drawn up with the participation and consensus of the various bodies of the Doctoral School, are published on its website.

The regulations section of the Doctoral School's website contains other important regulatory references for doctoral studies such as RD 99/2011 regulating official doctoral studies, the Regulations for Doctoral Studies (2012) and the Regulations on doctoral theses (2014), both from the University of Zaragoza.

Rules of duration and permanence in the doctorate are established in Instrucción de23 de mayo de 2018 de la Escuela de Doctorado relativa al acceso, admisión,dedicación y permanencia en los estudios de doctorado de la Universidad deZaragoza (R.D. 99/2011).

Full-time thesis should be complete in three years, from the date of admission to the doctoral program, although the Academic Committee of the program may authorize the extension of this period for one more year. Part-time doctoral students will have five years from their admission to the presentation of the thesis, and the Academic Committee may authorize an extension for two more years. Exceptionally, an additional year of extension can be added.

PhD candidates may request a change in dedication (full-time / part-time) as well as the temporary withdrawal for justified reasons of the Academic Committee. They can cause a definitive withdrawal and see their file closed in these cases: if the available time to deposit the thesis is exceeded or if they receive two consecutive negative evaluations of the research plan.

These processes are explained in detail on our website (info) and the doctoral students are told how to proceed in cases of temporary withdrawal (info).

Doctoral activity in an academic year is governed by the deadlines established in the specific doctoral academic calendar. This calendar, which is approved well in advance, sets the periods for application for access, admission to programmes, registration at the University of Zaragoza, presentation by doctoral students of the research plan and the activities document, as well as the deadlines for the defence of doctoral theses.

The website of the Doctoral School publishes the calendar for the current academic year, as well as for the two previous years.

To provide service to the PhD Program in Systems Engineering and Computer Science, the Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering has a set of resources that are part of the School of Engineering and Architecture (EINA), the center where the program is taught. Likewise, most of the department's research groups that support the research lines of the PhD program are part of the Institute of Research and Engineering of Aragón (I3A). The I3A has its facilities in the I+D+i building of the Río Ebro Campus which are also available to the PhD Program.

• Classrooms and seminars: Classrooms equipped with blackboard and projection equipment. Computer classrooms also have computer stations for students.
• Teaching and research laboratories: The Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering (DIIS) has 7 teaching laboratories that occupy an area of ​​600 m2 in the Ada Byron building. As for research laboratories, the DIIS has 10 research laboratories managed by the department's research groups, which occupy an area of ​​550 m2. These laboratories have specific equipment for the different research lines. Additionally, through the I3A, the research groups that participate in the PhD program also have 4 research laboratories that occupy an area of ​​340 m2 in the R+D+i building.