Section outline

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    Evaluation committees and reports, useful information and deadlines

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    Organization

    PhD Coordinator
    Prof. Giorgio Delzanno 
    Tel: +39-010-3536603 
    E-mail: giorgio.delzanno@unige.it

    PhD Program Commitee
    http://phd.dibris.unige.it/csse/index.php/phd-program-committee

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    Documentation

    Documentation required during the PhD program

    - Study Plan (beginning of first year)
    - Annual Report (end of each year)
    - Thesis Proposal (end of first year)
    - Progress Report (end of second year)
    - PhD Thesis (end of last year)
    - Certificates of passed exams and attended schools 

    How to share documentation 
    At the beginning of the PhD Program each student will be invited to share a Dropbox folder with the PhD Coordinator and Program Committee.

    Before each deadline (communicated by email), the student will be required to save the due document(s) in the Dropbox folder.

    Below you find instructions and templates for each document type (any readable format is ok).

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    Deadlines

    ANNUAL EVALUATION AND ADMISSION TO THE NEXT YEAR

    25 September 2026 – Submission of documents

    PhD students must complete the online Doctoral Student Booklet, available at:

    https://servizionline.unige.it/web-studenti2/en/#/v2/libretto/5001

    They must also email the following document, according to their current year, to phd.compsci@dibris.unige.it:

    • First-year students: Thesis Proposal
    • Second-year students: Progress Report
    • Third-year students: Draft or detailed plan of the PhD thesis

    Templates are available in the CSSE AulaWeb course:

    https://dottorati.aulaweb.unige.it/course/view.php?id=164

    By 16 October 2026 – Meeting with the evaluation committee

    PhD students and their supervisors must arrange a meeting with the evaluation committee to take place no later than 16 October 2026.

    The composition of the evaluation committees will be published at:

    https://dottorati.aulaweb.unige.it/mod/page/view.php?id=1561

    During the meeting, students must present:

    • their thesis proposal, if they are in the first year;
    • the progress of their research project, if they are in the second or third year.

    By 23 October 2026 – Supervisor’s report

    The supervisor must send a short report to the PhD Programme Coordinator by 23 October 2026.

    For first- and second-year students, the report must clearly state whether the student should be admitted to the following year.

    For third-year students, the report must indicate whether the student should be admitted to the external-review stage and specify the proposed final-examination session listed below.

    For students who need to renew their residence permit, supervisors must submit the report by 30 September 2026.

    PHD THESIS REVIEW AND FINAL EXAMINATION – THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS

    The admission procedure for the external-review stage must be completed in October 2026, irrespective of the selected final-examination session.

    The supervisor(s), together with the evaluation committee, must propose three possible external reviewers. The PhD Programme Board will select and contact two reviewers at least two weeks before the thesis-submission deadline.

    Session 1

    • Thesis submission to external reviewers: 9 November 2026
    • Deadline for reviewers’ reports: 11 December 2026
    • Admission to the final examination: 14–18 December 2026
    • Final examination: 1–5 February 2027

    Session 2

    • Thesis submission to external reviewers: 11 January 2027
    • Deadline for reviewers’ reports: 12 February 2027
    • Admission to the final examination: 15–19 February 2027
    • Final examination: 22–26 March 2027

    Session 3

    • Thesis submission to external reviewers: 8 March 2027
    • Deadline for reviewers’ reports: 9 April 2027
    • Admission to the final examination: 12–16 April 2027
    • Final examination: 24–28 May 2027

     

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    Study Plan (at the end of I year)

    The Study Plan contains information about the PhD students' education:

    a) List of courses to be taken or already taken for credit, with name of the course, instructors, when and where it is held, number of credits

    b) List of courses to be audited or already audited with name of the course, instructors, when and where it is held

    c) List of the schools to attend, with title of the school, web site, dates and place

    The courses taken or to be taken for credit inside a School (e.g. Bertinoro School for Computer Science students) should be specified inside item (a).

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    Exams

    Procedure for  accreditation of the course exams:

    Upload in your personal Dropbox directory:

    - a signed copy of the exam certification (see template below)
    or
    - a copy of an email of the course instructor with the exam evaluation

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    Annual Report (end of each year)

    The annual report is a short summary of the activities performed by a student during the last year. The report has the following format:

    Personal Data

    • current position: PhD student in... (cycle...) from year...
    • date and place of birth: DD/MM/YY (place)
    • nationality: ...

    Education

    a) List of courses taken for credit, with name of the course, instructors, when and where it was held, number of credits, final grade

    b) List of courses audited with name of the course, instructors, when and where it was held

    c) List of the schools attended, with title of the school, web site, dates and place, grade (if the School is taken for credit)

    The courses taken for credit  inside a School (e.g. Bertinoro School for Computer Science students) should be specified inside item (a).

    Teaching support: specify the name of the course, the instructor, and the number of hours

    Research : publications, participation in conferences and workshops, collaboration plus a summary of the research activities (one or two paragraphs)


    The report needs to be updated by the date required by the Program Coordinator and should be uploaded as a plain text file in the personal Dropbox directory.

     

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    Thesis Proposal (end of I year)

    All PhD students towards the end of the first year must present a thesis proposal. This is a precondition for the admission to the second year.
    The thesis proposal is a very relevant step in the path towards a PhD in order to evaluate the current status of the research work of the student and to plan the final dissertation. It should be designed as a research project proposal, not as a scientific paper.

    Proposal Structure

    The thesis proposal should be a 10-20 pages long document (written in English) including:

    1. A title and an abstract

    2. Motivations and a concise description of the goals of the thesis

    3. The identification of the PhD thesis reference research area and discussion of the relevance of the thesis goals

    4. A review of the state of the art

    5. A presentation of possible preliminary results (obtained during the first year)

    6. The description of the expected results and the strategies to be applied for pursuing such results with an informal justification of their feasibility.

    7. A work plan for the remaining two years (including a time schedule and a description of the relationships among the proposed activities).

    Presentation and Discussion

    The presentation of each thesis proposal is public and is done in front of the PhD Program Committee. The presentation should contain an overview of the proposal understandable also to non-experts in the specific topic of the proposal.

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    Progress Report (end of II year)

    The progress report should be a 3-5 pages long document (written in English or Italian, and uploaded as a text file), including:

    1. The current progress of the work plan presented in the thesis proposal.
    2. The description of possible unexpected problems, for which an update to the work plan might be required.
    3. An updated work plan for the last year.
    4. An updated outline of the thesis.
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    Application for one additional year (cycle XXXI and older ones)

    PhD Candidate of Cycle XXXI (and older ones) can apply for one additional year without grant.
    Candidates interested in this option must fill in the form included below and send it to the PhD Coordinator phdcomsci@dibris.unige.it by October 8, 2018.
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    Submission of the PhD Thesis and Defense

    At the end of the last year the students, who acquired all necessary CFs, must submit a thesis (in English), which will be evaluated by two external experts (reviewers) and by the PhD Program Committee on the basis of a proposal of the PhD Program
    Coordinator. The thesis will be sent to the external reviewers provided that requirements 1-4 below are satisfied. The two external reviewers will decide whether the thesis can be admitted to the final examination.
    The final examination will be a public thesis defence performed in front of a committee appointed by the University of Genova based on the recommendation of the PhD Program Committee. The committee for the final examination will be composed of at least three professors and it can be extended with two additional experts from other institutions according to indications of the PhD Program Committee.

    To be admitted to the evaluation by the External Reviewers:

    1. The PhD thesis must be approved by the advisor(s)
    2. The third year report must be approved by the PhD Program Committee
    3. The CFs requirements must be all satisfied.
    4. The PhD Student must be a (co)-author of at least one scientific paper in a peer-reviewed international journal  (published or accepted for publication) or in a well-recognized international conference.

    PhD students may pass or fail admission.
    The PhD committee, the candidate or his/her supervisor may ask to postpone the thesis defence of one year to complete the work.
    The External Reviewers may accept  ask to postpone the thesis defence of six months to complete the work, or reject the thesis.

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    Informazioni per Coordinatore e Tutor

    Terzo Anno
    Per le tempistiche vedere il calendario delle scadenze.

    • il relatore deve proporre una rosa di referee esterni tra i quali ne verranno scelti almeno 2.
    • il coordinatore deve scegliere i nominativi dei referee esterni tra quelli che hanno dato il loro assenso a referare la tesi entro i tempi previsti.
    • il dottorando deve fare domanda al Rettore per essere ammesso all'esame finale.
    • il dottorando deve consegnare al coordinatore copie della tesi in inglese che saranno inviate ai referee esterni.
    • il dottorando deve consegnare al coordinatore copie della tesi da inviare ai membri della commissione per il conferimento del titolo ed agli uffici.
    • i referee esterni devono inviare al coordinatore per e-mail un rapporto scritto sulla tesi
    • discussione (aperta al pubblico) della tesi davanti alla commissione per il conferimento del titolo.

    è possibile chiedere di ritardare di un anno la consegna della tesi (in tal caso l'esame finale viene effettuato con i dottorandi del ciclo successivo), la borsa di dottorato pero' non puo' essere estesa.