Guidelines. for drawing up contracts for Joint Doctoral Supervision and Dual Degrees. August

Transcription

1 Guidelines for drawing up contracts for Joint Doctoral Supervision and Dual Degrees August

2 Guidelines for drawing up contracts for Joint Doctoral Supervision and Dual Degrees Dutch Law has made provisions for a Joint Doctorate, that is to say a single diploma for the successful completion of a doctoral research project that is jointly supervised with another institution for higher education, mostly outside the Netherlands. Within the TU Delft there has been a steady increase of initiatives towards setting up PhD programmes with (mostly) foreign academic institutions. As a result, the faculties put in requests for processing agreements concerning international cooperation and PhD supervision. Those requesting and/or drawing up the agreements often find themselves searching for previous examples of similar agreements, policies of international cooperation or official procedural support. A pilot project at TPM has led to conclusions for the desirable and possible forms of Joint Doctorates and given input for these guidelines. This step-by-step guide helps to overcome the information gap. a. A joint doctoral supervision resulting in one (single), joint degree and diploma (under one set of regulations including evaluations) is generally impractical and will not be supported by the Board for Doctorates of TU Delft. b. If a long-standing collaboration exists or is foreseen, the Board for Doctorates prefers a scheme with a single diploma per partner resulting in one diploma per Doctoral candidate; diplomas are in numbers equally balanced among the partners. In fact, each partner issues its own degree and diploma under its own regulations. The cooperation agreement deals only with the research that is performed jointly. Therefore, only the general scientific cooperation agreement between the partners is needed (step /model 1 hereafter) and no joint doctoral supervision / dual diploma agreement is necessary (step /model 2 hereafter). c. If a long standing collaboration exists or is foreseen and a single diploma scheme, as mentioned in b, is not feasible or acceptable, the Board for Doctorates will consider a socalled dual diploma scheme: each of the partners has its own diploma, but each diploma contains a text that explicitly refers to the joint supervision of the thesis. The Doctoral candidate will receive a number of dual diploma s equal to the number of partners in the agreement. These guidelines are mainly for this type of cooperation that will result in dual degrees. Two model-contracts are provided to support the initial steps in the negotiations with the partners. d. One should be very restrained in setting up joint doctoral supervision that aims for double or multiple diplomas (and degrees). The workload associated with setting up the agreements, and monitoring and implementing the process can be considerable. Furthermore, the condition that the defence should be firstly performed at TU Delft may cause a difficulty in the negotiations. Only long-standing collaborations with a considerable amount of Doctoral candidates should be considered for such scheme. For projects with only a few Doctoral candidates, TU Delft will not issue a double diploma. Proposals for cooperation must be submitted to the Office of the Executive Board for the attention of the Board for Doctorates. The Board for Doctorates will seek advice from the Joint Education Assessment Committee, where it will be reviewed according to a general set of quality standards. These standards will be based on the Graduate School guidelines and the Doctorate Regulations of the TU Delft that are pertinent to the quality of supervision during the entire course, doctoral education, the make-up of the Doctoral Committee, assessment and defence of theses, protocol and location of the defence. Furthermore, corporate strategic benefits associated with such partner agreement will be considered as well. August

3 These guidelines are primarily intended for agreements that will result in dual diploma s (each partner produces a diploma, which are explicitly linked), as mentioned in C above. These forms of cooperation are subject to a number of clear, mandatory conditions. Models and their associated working procedure are provided as support. It is recommended to always seek advice from the Board for Doctorates before negotiations with partner institutions are started. Step 1: The partner institution is manifestly of sound quality and status, and maintains a specified standard of quality. A cooperation agreement exists. (Model cooperation agreement) Before any form of cooperation can be entered upon, the quality of the partner institution must be known or assessed. Evaluation tools include national and international rankings, national accreditation, specific experiences in cooperation and the institution s internal quality control. The Executive Board will request the advice of the Joint Education Assessment Committee, before deciding on approval of a new partnership for doctoral supervision of Dual Diploma programs. If the intention is to undertake a long-lasting cooperation with one or more universities, it may be appropriate to first sign a general agreement between the Executive Boards, on the basis of the master agreement: Model agreement Academic and Scientific Cooperation. You should procure the advice of Legal Services if you wish to depart from the terms of this model. The existence of such a cooperation agreement is mandatory for the following step: negotiations for a separate agreement on Joint Doctoral Supervision and Dual Diploma (see Step 2). August

4 Step 2: Supervision of the Doctoral candidate and enforcement of the Doctoral Regulations that allow for Dual Diploma (Model agreement joint PhD) * This is the main step under these guidelines * TU Delft has developed a special model for these cases: Model agreement joint PhD: Joint Supervision and Dual Diploma. You should procure the advice of Legal Services if you wish to depart from the terms of this model. Signing: The Model agreement joint PhD must be signed by the Chairman of the Board for Doctorates; at TU Delft this is the same person as the Rector, because all forms of joint doctorates must be approved by the Board for Doctorates. The Joint Education Assessment Committee performs a check on the good quality of the partner institution, as commissioned by the Executive Board. The Dean can be granted a mandate to finalise the agreement, acting on behalf of the Chairman of the Board for Doctorates / Rector Magnificus. The supervisors must always add their signatures. Step 2a: Appendix A: Doctoral Education Programme (This is an appendix to the Model agreement Joint PhD ) The supervisors draw up a Doctoral Education Programme (see Appendix A: Doctoral Education Programme) together with the Doctoral candidate, which details the area of research and the subject of the thesis, as well as: A: Transferable skills B: Research related Skills C: Discipline Related Skills (in line with the guidelines and policy of the Graduate School and Doctorate Regulations of Delft University of Technology) Deviations from this scheme must always be approved by the Board for Doctorates after it has been signed by the supervisors of the Doctoral candidate. The Board for Doctorates takes the advice of the Joint Education Assessment Committee into consideration. The Graduate Office offers professional support for this undertaking. Supplements 1) Model agreement Academic and Scientific Cooperation 2) Model agreement joint PhD: Joint Supervision and Dual Diploma with Appendix A: Doctoral Education Programme August

5 Signature warrants President RM or VPEO Chairman Board for Doctorates Doctoral Research Supervisor Doctoral candidate Model agreement Academic and Scientific cooperation Model agreement joint PhD when candidate is known App. A: Doctoral Education Programme If not in line with Doctorate Regulations 1-1 The Dean may be authorised by the Executive Board to sign the agreement August