1st Year is organized as follows:
There are some compulsory courses, depending on the specific curriculum, that PhD students are required to attend. As for optional courses, PhD students decide with their tutors which courses to attend from those included in the course schedule organized by the PhD program. Students can also agree with their tutors to attend any other advanced or PhD-level courses offered by Sapienza or elsewhere.
By the end of September, PhD students prepare an outline of their research project, which must be approved by their tutors. The document (minimum 2,000 words) includes a brief description of the research, its objectives, the theoretical framework, the expected outcomes/findings, and their contribution to advancing the state-of-the-art research on the topic. It also includes a brief description of the methodology, a preliminary thesis structure, and the name(s) of the potential supervisor(s).
A workshop is organized in October for PhD students to present their research projects. Based on the research project this presentation and the Reporting Form that the PhD student is required to complete on INFOSTUD , the College approves admission to the second year.
2nd Year is organized as follows
During the second year there is not an ad-hoc course's schedule. PhD students can participate to any of the first year courses which they didn't attend or postponed to the second year, as well as in courses activities of various sorts, both in Sapienza and elsewhere, based on their specific research topic. From the second year, moreover, attendance to scientific events such as conferences, seminars, workshops, etc., or training, courses, labs, summer schools or institutes, etc., in other universities or departments, is warmly welcome. PhD students are free to choose the activities that are the most appropriate to their research. In the second year, the topic for the thesis is already outlined and PhD students develop it in collaboration with their supervisors and with other faculties. It is strongly recommended to conduct part of the research abroad, typically during the second year or at the beginning of the third year, and this should be planned in advance. In some cases, a joint PhD agreement (cotutela) can be established. This agreement involves specifying a foreign university, a PhD program, and a thesis supervisor at that university. The agreement must be activated by the 18th month of the PhD program.
When the PhD research is carried out partially abroad, with a stay of at least three months in an EU member state different from the one where the thesis is defended, the supervisors must be at least two and affiliated with two different European universities in different EU countries. In this case, the PhD student may obtain the additional title of "Doctor Europaeus".
A workshop is organized in October for PhD students to present their research projects. Based on this presentation, and the Reporting Form that the PhD student is required to complete on INFOSTUD , the College approves admission to the third year.
3rd year is organized as follows
As for the second year, the third year does not include a structured courses' schedule, but PhD students participate in various types of training activities, both at Sapienza and elsewhere, as well as attend and present their research in conferences, lectures, seminars, workshops, summer schools, both in Italy and especially abroad.
Admission to the final exam is based on the evaluation of the thesis. To this end, the supervisor(s) fill out an evaluation form, and in October, the PhD student presents the main results of the thesis work at the end-of-year workshop.
The PhD research can be submitted as either a ‘book’, or in the form of at least three research articles. The articles must be submitted before the end of the 3rd year to international peer-reviewed scientific journals, preferably indexed by the Web of Science and/or Scopus. If the articles are not published yet by the end of the third year, the supervisor should guarantee that the articles are solid enough to be publishable, and this must be confirmed by the external reviewers. Coherence among the chapters/articles is compulsory in any case. In both cases, the submission of articles to scientific journals is strongly recommended. The results of the above mentioned workshop, together with the supervisor/s' report, contribute to the decision to admit or not the candidate to the final defense of the thesis. The thesis is then sent to two external reviewers who establish if and when the thesis can be discussed in front of the final commission, and after which revisions and changes.