The educational structure includes the activities that the PhD students should carry out to achieve the final PhD title in Chemical Sciences.

The Educational offer from the Doctorate in Chemical Sciences consists in several courses, covering advanced topics of specialized and interdisciplinary content, taught by experienced teachers belonging either to the Department of Chemical Sciences or to other Italian and foreign universities.

The Doctoral Course organizes numerous seminars of high scientific and cultural impact held by outstanding scientists from all over the world.

The three-year PhD course is generally articulated as it follows:

• At the beginning of the training/research course, each PhD student should present to the Academic Board a detailed report about the project it is intended to develop (link) along with an oral presentation. The Board will assign the thesis tutor and supervisor to the project.
• 1st Year: study of the literature related to the project, acquisition and theoretical-practical improvement on the techniques useful for carrying out the research and beginning of the research activity.
• II Year and III Year: research activity, also including a period (up to 6 months) carried out at another university or research center, preferably abroad.

During the three-year period, each PhD student is required to perform the following additional activities:

attending at least six advanced courses of 2 training credits (CFU) of specialist and/or interdisciplinary content, which are specifically designed for the PhD students. The courses should be selected among those offered by the School (or other Chemical Sciences related Schools). Alternatively, the student is required to attend at least three advanced courses of 2 CFU, selected among those offered by the school, and one course (at least 6 ECTS) selected among those of related or supplementary subjects, or from optional courses offered by Master Courses which are relevant to the purposes of the Doctorate in Chemical Sciences;

• attending at least 1 transversal training course (according to art. 4, paragraph 1, letter f of Ministerial Decree 45/2013 - Guidelines for the Accreditation of Doctoral Courses);
• attending at least nine scientific seminars;
• attending at least one national or international school;
• spending a period of at least three months at another university or research center;
• having attended at least two national or international conferences by presenting posters or communications, of which the PhD student is the first author.

The verification of the acquired skills and knowledge takes place at the end of each year through interviews of the student with the supervisor along with the presentation of a written report on the activities carried out by the student (link). The achieved results will be assessed by the members of the Academic Board, all of whom can either decide the admission of the PhD student to the successive year, or can propose the exclusion of the student from the PhD course to the Rector.

The final exam is run in English with a committee consisting of a professor from the Department of Chemical Sciences and at least two external, possibly foreigners, teachers.

Three years after graduation, the PhD student should have produced at least three scientific publications on high impact, ISI Web of Science or Scopus indexed journals. It is strongly recommended that at least one of the three publications be produced during the three years of the doctoral course.

PhD students, as an integral part of the training project, can carry out tutoring and supplementary teaching activities (up to a maximum of 40 hours), subjected to authorization from the Academic Board, according to art. 17 of the Discipline Regulation of the Research Doctorate (DR / 2019/3999 of 17/10/2019).

Specific doctoral courses

The list of specialist and interdisciplinary advanced courses offered by the School for the activated doctoral cycles can be up-loaded here in pdf format. 

Courses will be activated if selected by at least two PhD students. Courses selected by a single student can be often converted into "supervised learning" option.

The PhD school offers also training courses about safety on working places, held by Ufficio Formazione di Ateneo.

Transversal courses

This training activity refers to the following items:

• Linguistic training;
• Informatic training;
• research management, knowledge of research systems and funding systems;
• enhancement of research results and intellectual property.

Details on this activity are available here.