Doctoral Program in Logistics and Management of the Supply Chain 2020–2021

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.

00 - Additional skills are not considered

The requirements for access to doctorate studies are set in RD 99/2011 and can be consulted in the corresponding Instruction of the Doctorate School (pdf). In general, an official Spanish Bachelor's and Master's degrees or equivalent are required, with a minimum global extension of 300 ECTS credits.

Candidates with university degrees issued by a country of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) may request admission directly (info). If the degree is issued by a country outside the EHEA, the application for access with a non-homologated foreign degree must be submitted (info).

Those interested can expand their information in the administrative section of the Doctoral School (web) or the administration of the program (see contact data in the program general information section).

Offer of places: 8

Admission to the Doctoral Program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

The Academic Commission of the Doctoral Program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management is the body that approves the admission of a student to the program.

To apply for admission to the doctoral program there are two application rounds throughout each academic year.

These rounds are published on the Zaragoza Logistics Center website. www.zlc.edu.es Applicants must submit the following information:

1. Application sheet

Online through the Zaragoza Logistics Center website (www.zlc.edu.es/education/mit-zaragoza-phd/) and the University of Zaragoza website (wzar.unizar.es/servicios/docto/).

2. ERG

Students must submit the results of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE); standard exam that constitutes one of the admission requirements in

graduate schools in different countries. This exam aims to measure a student's verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, analytical writing, and critical thinking skills.

3.TOEFL

As the Doctoral Program is taught entirely in English, applicants from non-English speaking countries must prove their command of spoken and written English by taking the TOEFL exam (Test Of English as a Foreign Language). This exam assesses how the student combines listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills to perform academic tasks.

4. Files and titles

The records and titles of all undergraduate and graduate programs completed by the student are requested.

5. Resume

Previous professional experience is relevant but not essential.

6. Letters of recommendation

Each student must submit three letters of recommendation from their professors, supervisors or tutors, preferably from both the university where they did their previous studies and from industry.

7. Motivation for taking the Doctoral Program

Reasons for joining this program must be included. The applicant must prepare a statement of goals and objectives clearly presenting her views. You should collect your particular interests, whether experimental, theoretical, or topic-oriented, and show how your training and this program reinforces your interests. You should explain your long-term career goals. This statement should be no more than 500 words.

8. Research area motivation

You must submit a motivation letter - of no more than 500 words - towards the area or line of research of your interest. You can cite examples of your work experience and previous training in the area of ​​interest.

Preferred profiles:

The entry profile for this program corresponds to:

Graduates in Engineering (five-year Engineering or Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Engineering adapted to the EHEA) as well as graduates of degrees (bachelor's degrees, or degrees and master's degrees in the field of Economics, who accredit previous knowledge in logistics research methodologies and supply chain management.

The Academic Committee will also consider the admission of students from another master's degree with comparable content taught by any institution of the European Higher Education Area or from foreign countries if they allow access to doctoral studies in the country of issue.

Selection criteria:

With all the documentation provided by the student, the following will be evaluated:

15% GRE test result

15% TOEFL test result

15% Previous professional experience in logistics and supply chain management and related areas

5% Previous knowledge in research methodologies in logistics and supply chain management and related areas

30% academic record

15% Personal motivation to develop a doctorate and motivation for research on this subject

5% Other contributions of your resume

Selection process

The steps of the selection process are as follows:

1. Evaluation of applications received

2. The Academic Commission of this Doctoral Program, made up of the coordinator and three professors, scores each of the selection criteria from 1 to 10 (1 being the worst and 10 the best). Each reviewer gives a single final score after reviewing the entire application. The final grade, also from 1 to 10, determines the decision as follows:

a. [8.5 - 10]: Immediate pre-admission

b. [7.5 - 8.5): Pre-admit standby

c. [6.5 - 7.5): Waiting list

d. Below 6.5: Rejected

3. Interview with previously admitted applicants (according to the aforementioned criteria, English, professional experience, personal motivation for the doctorate and for the area of ​​logistics and supply chain management, previous knowledge in research, as well as as well as other considerations about the adequacy of your profile).

4. Selection of the candidates.

This program follows the highest international quality standards for doctoral studies, with a very rigorous admission process, so that in the selection process there are applicants who usually meet all the necessary training requirements. Even so, the program establishes a previous year of stay at the Zaragoza Logistics Center, to follow specific courses that are offered by this center and that can be consulted on the program's own website, and that allow the doctoral student to complete their specific training.

Doctoral students, as researchers in training and students of the University of Zaragoza, have to formalize every year the enrollment with the corresponding rights to the academic tutorship while continuing their doctoral training. The enrollment period will be set  in the academiccalendar approved each year by the Doctoral School. 

As a general rule, enrollment will be done online through the Secretaría Virtual ofthe University of Zaragoza. Previously a personal identification number (NIP) and password will have been obtained in the identity management service. Face-to-face registration will be allowed to those who cannot do it online, by going to the doctoral school during public service hours. PhD students must submit every year in which they enroll, documentation about their previous studies, depending on whether they have been taken in countries of the European Education Area or outside that space.

Full and up-to-date information on the enrollment procedure, including key points, is provided on the website of the Doctoral School, as well as prices, discounts and insurance, legalization and translation of documents and some others practical details.

The procedures for the supervision of doctoral students are set in article 11 of Royal Decree 99/2011, which regulates doctoral studies and the rules about Thesis (Reglamento sobre Tesis Doctorales de la Universidad de Zaragoza). The doctoral student admitted to the program has to enrol each academic year in academic tutelage at the University of Zaragoza. The Academic Committee of the program will assign a Thesis Director and a tutor, who may or may not be the same. The Thesis Director will be the person in charge of the overall management of the doctoral student's research tasks, of the coherence and adequacy of the training activities, of the impact and novelty in his/her field of the subject of the doctoral thesis and of the guide in other projects and activities where the doctoral student is involved. The tutor is responsible for the adaptation of the training and the research activity to the principles of the program and the Doctoral School and will ensure the interaction of the doctoral student with the Academic Committee of the program, the body responsible for supervising the progress of the research and training and the authorization of the thesis presentation of each doctoral student of the program.

The supervisory functions of the doctoral students will be documented in the Doctorate Letter which, once the registration is made, will be signed by the doctoral student, its tutor and its director, the program coordinator and the director of the Doctoral School. Those interested can expand the information on the thesis supervision in the administrative headquarters of the program (see contact information in the general information of the program) or by consulting the program coordinator.

The follow-up of the training process leading to the presentation of the doctoral thesis is carried out through the research plan and the doctoral student's document of activities. The research plan is presented before the end of the first year of enrolment and includes, at least, the methodology to be used and the objectives to be achieved, as well as the means and the temporal planning to achieve it. The plan may be improved and detailed later and must be endorsed by the Director and the tutor. The document of activities is the register of all the activities -research stays, courses, attendance to congresses, or others- that the doctorate carries out from his enrolment until the presentation of the doctoral thesis. Annually, the Academic Committee of the program will evaluate the follow-up of the research plan together with the document of activities. The positive evaluation will be an essential requirement to continue in the program. In the case of a negative evaluation, the doctoral student must be evaluated again within a maximum period of six months. Those interested can expand this information in the administrative headquarters of the program (see contact information in the general information of the program) or by consulting the program coordinator.

People interested in pursuing doctoral studies in this program can obtain information on the Internet, through the Zaragoza Logistics Center website, in education, in the MIT-Zaragoza doctorate section, on the website of the Doctoral Program in Logistics and Supply chain management.

https://www.zlc.edu.es/es/educacion/doctorado-en-logistica-y-gestion-de-la-cadena-de-suministro/

The Doctoral School offers an annual series of voluntary activities for all doctoral students. This formation has a transversal and interdisciplinary nature. The offer is dynamic and covers the following formative aspects: communication (oral and written), access and information management, and skills for a future social and professional performance.  Information about the activities, admission and enrolment can be found in the website of the Doctoral School  (info).

Title: Impartation of seminars They will work on and discuss the subjects of the doctoral student's research. Debate of up to thirty minutes with the audience, made up of other doctoral students and doctors participating in the Doctoral Program. These dynamics will allow the student to collect suggestions and aspects to reinforce in their research, as well as compare results from other researchers in the area.

Duration: 10 hours

Control procedures: The doctoral student prepares a brief report based on the content of the seminar given and the comments and suggestions received by the assistants, researchers and professors from among the doctors of the Doctoral Program that will be evaluated by the tutor. Each record will be incorporated into the Activities Document of the participating doctoral student.

Title: PhD Summer Academy This is an intense period of learning, debate and discovery in which doctoral students from this program and other guests, program professors, world-renowned guest professors and editors of the main publications in this area , work in seminars around the fundamental concepts and the latest trends in supply chain management. .

Duration: 90 hours

Control procedures: The professors in charge of carrying out this activity will propose an application work that, together with the dynamics of the courses, will serve to evaluate the training of doctorates. For this activity, the Academic Committee will appoint a professor who coordinates the sessions, who will complement the evaluation of the training. Each record will be incorporated into the Activities Document of the participating doctoral student.

In the 2019-2020 academic year, ZLC has decided to cancel the 13th edition of the Summer Academy for PhD Students in Logistics and Supply Chain Management due to the Covid-19 situation. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. For any query and/or refund, send an email to phdacademy@zlc.edu.es.

Title: Research stay at the Center for Transport and Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) Student research stay at MIT for a period of four months. This activity aims to complete the student's research training through interaction with the Center for Transportation and Logistics research group at MIT, as well as with the companies with which they work and participate in the activities that take place there.

Duration: 600 hours

Control procedures: Through reports of the stay, developed on the one hand by the doctorate describing the activity carried out and the research results achieved and on the other, a report issued by the host researcher or, failing that, by the thesis supervisor, and endorsed by the Academic Committee. These reports will be included in the Doctoral Student Activities Document.

Title: Mobility Actions In addition to the research stays at the Center for Transport and Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States), they may be completed with stays in other research groups at other universities with which the program has a relationship narrow or in national or international companies, subject to the availability of financing. Zaragoza Logistics Center will annually carry out an economic forecast to support this research period. The student must attend 6 seminars throughout their training. The recommended distribution will be two a year for TC students and one a year for TP students, except in the third or fourth year that should attend two. .

Duration: specific in each case

Control procedures: The Academic Committee will appoint a rapporteur professor for each activity, who will be in charge of evaluating the training and use of the doctorates. The interventions of each doctoral student in the sessions of lines of research other than that of the interested party will be particularly valued.

Title: Attendance at conferences and presentation of papers Attendance at national or international conferences of the specialty, subject to the availability of funding, and presentation of papers. These include: Workshops organized by most of these congresses, where training activities and workshops are proposed for doctoral students: Logistop and/or Alice, International Congresses: EUROMA, INFOMRS, POMS, MSOM, Academy of Management, among others.

Duration: 48 hours

Control procedures: Prior to participating in the congress, the doctoral student will present to his tutor the objectives pursued by attending the congress, as well as a proposal for the presentation of the research results. After the congress, the doctoral student will prepare a report about the activity carried out in the congress, including a summary of the most outstanding results in his opinion of those presented at the congress, also completed by the relevant documentation (attendance certificates, certificate of having personally presented the paper), which will be evaluated by the tutor. Each record will be incorporated into the Activities Document of the participating doctoral student.

Title: Transversal Skills Series of courses or workshops to promote the acquisition of transversal skills. The courses may be combined with those offered by the Doctoral School of the University of Zaragoza. This training activity will allow students to develop and enrich their communication skills in the scientific-technical field. .

Duration: 18 hours

Control procedures: The professors in charge of carrying out this activity will propose an application work that, together with the dynamics of these courses, will serve to evaluate the training of doctorates. Each record will be incorporated into the Activities Document of the participating doctoral student.

Doctoral students enrolled in doctoral programs benefit from mobility aids established in various national and international calls. The calls for the Erasmus + program stand out.

In the Erasmus + Studies mode, doctoral students can choose a wide range of destinations, since most of the agreements signed by the University of Zaragoza with other universities include places for PhD students of all branches.

In the Erasmus + Stays / Practices in companies modality, PhD students access two calls: the one from the University of Zaragoza and the one carried out by the Iberus International Campus of Excellence for the universities that comprise it, the one from Zaragoza among them.

Other mobility calls are specifically designed for Latin American students and for international stays of students with predoctoral contracts. The mobility of doctoral students of the University of Zaragoza is also encouraged with cotutela agreements signed with foreign universities.

The Doctoral School of the University of Zaragoza has rules and procedures to achieve its various goals, which have been written with the agreement of the different levels of the Doctoral School, and are published on its website.

The regulations section of the Doctoral School website contains other important regulations, both national and of the University of Zaragoza, such as RD 99/2011 por el que se regulan las enseñanzas oficiales de doctorado, el Reglamento de los Estudios de Doctorado (2012) y el Reglamento sobre tesis doctorales (2014).

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).

The academic year is governed by the deadlines established in the specific Doctoral School´s academic calendar.

This calendar sets the periods of request for entry, admission to the programs, enrollment at the University of Zaragoza, as well as how the students must present every year the research plan and the activities document, deadlines for defending doctoral theses, etc.

The Doctoral School website publishes the calendar of the current course as well as the two previous courses (info).

Zaragoza Logistics Center, together with the University of Zaragoza and the Departments, Institutes, research groups and professors involved in

In collaboration with the doctoral program, they offer the necessary resources and services to carry out doctoral theses.

It should be noted that given the topics to be investigated around Logistics and Supply Chain Management, laboratories with large material infrastructures are not required.

These resources include the following.

1. Laboratories

ZLC is directly related to the development of PLAZA - the largest logistics park in Europe. With its facilities at the center of this logistics park, the research center sits in the middle of a large-scale laboratory whereby it will serve as a model for close cooperation between industry and academia. Doctoral students have a private office equipped with all the necessary office supplies at their disposal. In addition, the center has all the computer equipment, internet, accessories, new technologies, so that the research staff can carry out their research and their publications, as well as communicate with collaborators from all over the world.

the world.

In addition, the center's servers and computer network allow researchers to be able to work inside and outside the necessary office systems and specific software to carry out projects.

Among the experimental means and computations available to the students of the doctoral program, the following means stand out in accordance with the nature of the activity to be investigated:

1. Three virtualized servers

2. Advanced simulation methods, software and hardware

3. Optimization licenses in logistics and transport:

2. Libraries and documentation

Researchers and doctoral students at Zaragoza Logistics Center have access to the center's library, which brings together the best specialized bibliographic collection at a national level, made up of 1,622 books on this subject. In addition, the students of the Program have access to the MIT online libraries, which stand out especially for being one of the most sophisticated and complete digital libraries in the world, which includes access to documentary collections, bibliographic databases and publications. scientific, related to the doctoral program.

The University has the university libraries with extensive and easily accessible hours that can be used by the students of the program. Libraries offer students a wide range of services such as book loans, access to paper and electronic collections, computer spaces, and individual and group work spaces.

3. Administrative support for doctoral students

Zaragoza Logistics Center has an administrative support office for the Doctorate program, which is complemented by the accounting, human resources and IT teams. Special mention should be made of the ZLC OTRI office, which is recognized according to its registration number

No. 218 since 2008 and which is in charge of facilitating those calls for research projects at local, regional, national and international levels, as well as the interconnection with those companies with which researchers, professors and doctoral students collaborate.

In addition, the Section of the Doctoral School is the unit of the University of Zaragoza in charge of providing technical and administrative support to the university community linked to doctoral studies.

4 International Relations Service

Through the administrative support of ZLC and the reception offices for international students of the University of Zaragoza and the International Relations Service, it promotes mobility, welcomes international doctoral students and facilitates their integration into the University.

International doctoral students are provided with support and information about the city, accommodation, courses in Spanish and other languages, medical assistance, and grants and scholarships, among other aspects.

5 Student Mobility Center

The University of Zaragoza, through the Office of the Vice President for Scientific Policy, forms part of the EURAXESS European Network of Aragon, an information point that provides personalized assistance to both foreign researchers who travel to Aragon to carry out their research work,

as well as Aragonese researchers who are interested in moving abroad temporarily. The International ZLC office and the EURAXESS network provide support on issues such as procedures for obtaining visas, residence cards and their renewals, validation of university degrees, job offers, Social Security and health care, schooling and other useful information for facilitate the displacement and integration of the researcher in the country of destination.

Detailed information can be found at:

http://www.unizar.es/gobierno/vr_investigacion/sgi/eramore/index.html

6 Promotion of mobility

The mobility of doctoral students is explicitly included as one of the action instruments of both the ZLC and the ZLC itself.

Zaragoza's University. Given the marked international nature of ZLC and as part of the doctoral program, students spend research stays at MIT, complemented by stays at other typically American universities, as well as presentations at international conferences. For this purpose, the doctoral student has a travel bag for this purpose.

The Doctoral School and its Administrative Section will support the participation in calls for mobility grants for Doctoral students.

It is the Coordinator of the Doctoral Program, together with the Academic Commission, who coordinates the Mobility actions, to ensure that the student has what is necessary at the destination University for their training and research.

Some indicators of this recent activity are:

-83% of the students come from other countries.

-100% have carried out research stays in other countries during their doctorate, enjoying travel grants to attend congresses and seminars.

-100% of the program's professors have fully completed their doctorate, or have carried out research stays at prestigious foreign universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University or the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, among others .

Doctoral students, during the planned research stays at CTL-MIT and explicitly included in the collaboration agreement, will have access to the research resources of the destination center, which will be governed by the access rules of said center.