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Doctoral School
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COVID-19, a new context
In a year dominated by COVID-19, the existing methodology designed by the Doctoral School for preparing theses online contined to work well. In addition, the school had to adapt to the new circumstances by adding online thesis defences and a new welcome system for predoctoral researchers who were joining.
By the end of academic year 2019/2020, over 200 theses had been read at the Doctoral School, 19 of them during this academic year (three of them fully online), and the school had almost 300 doctoral students of 39 nationalities.
"Working at an online university has many advantages and gives you more flexibility. You can work from home, but you can also have an office and colleagues to interact with. There is a very active community of researchers."
Mitchell Peters did the Education and ICT programme, and the flexibility of studying at the UOC enabled him to achieve both personal and professional goals. In July 2020, his thesis, "The Contribution of Lifelong Learning Ecologies in Online HE: Graduate Student Learning Across Contexts", became the first to be defended online by a predoctoral researcher at the UOC.
escola-de-doctorat.uoc.edu Director: Dr David Masip
"A doctorate is the highest level of education a university can offer researchers so they can go on to solve society's most complex problems. Essentially, this is where they cut their teeth in research."
New doctoral programmes double the offer
The Doctoral School coordinates and organizes the UOC's doctoral programmes, creating a common framework of reference for them. It works hand in hand with the UOC's three research centres and seven faculties. It offers four online doctoral programmes: Information and Knowledge Society; Education and ICT (E-learning); Network and Information Technologies; and Bioinformatics, a joint doctoral degree offered by the UOC with the UAB, UPC, UdG, UdL and UVicUCC. This academic year, the creation of four new doctoral programmes will double the number offered; two will be run online by the UOC alone and two are joint programmes: Humanities and Communication; Health and Psychology; Tourism (joint: UMA, UA, UCA, UCM, UEX, ULL, Nebrija, UOC, URJC, USC, US, UVIGO); and Business Administration and Management (joint: UPC, UPM, UPCT, UOC). Teaching will start next academic year.
The salient data concerning these programmes for academic year 2019/2020 were:
202
theses read at the UOC from its foundation until the end of academic year 2019/2020
39
nationalities
296
doctoral students
44
doctoral students with some kind of scholarship/ grant for their thesis contracted by the UOC
8
industrial doctoral students
2
recognitions of doctorates from foreign universities
19
theses read in this academic period (3 of them completely online)
