The recommended background is a scientific degree or an engineering degree followed by a Master course. Foreign students will be requested to demonstrate equivalent titles. As a general rule, the Master courses that will be considered to fit in the admission profile are those related to any of the research lines of this Ph.D. Program (see Research Lines ) and whose skills include a proper knowledge of Physics, Mathematics and programming languages, as well as English language proficiency at the level of reading and comprehension of scientific texts.

For those students that are considered not to have an adequate profile, the academic committee will establish the additional training requested for a proper development of the Ph.D. Program. That additional training will consist of subjects of the Master courses offered at UIB (Master Degree in Physics, Master Degree in Advanced Physics and Applied Mathematics, and Master Degree in Physics of Complex Systems), up to a maximum of 30 credits.

Considering the students' learning objectives and their status as full time or part time, the Academic Committee of the Ph.D. Program in Physics will recommend the student to take some of the cross-training (T) activities offered by the Doctorate School of UIB. These activities are all optional (O) (non compulsory) for the Ph.D. students in Physics. For the 2013-2014 period these activities are:

Cross-Training activities planned for the first semester:

• (T1, O) Communication skills in English: Written and Oral expression (Module I).
• (T2, O) Bibliographic search techniques

Cross-Training activities planned for the second semester:

• (T3, O) Communication skills in English: Written and Oral expression (Module II).
• (T4, O) Ethics and integrity in scientific research.
• (T5, O) Models of technology transfer

The student must also take the following specialized (E) training activities, which are in principle compulsory. A student can be exempted from carrying out an activity only when it involves mobility (M) and the student duly accredits the impossibility to cope with it. The specialized activities are:

• (E1)    To attend research seminars (30 h along the three academic years).
• (E2)    To give research seminars (one each academic year).
• (E3)    Tutorials (90 h, distributed more or less evenly over the three academic years).
• (E4, M)    Preparation and presentation of a scientific communication (2nd or 3rd academic year).
• (E5)    Preparation and writing of a scientific paper to be published in a journal indexed in the JCR (2nd or 3rd academic year).
• (E6, M)    Research stay in another research center (2nd or 3rd academic year).

Cross-Training activities:

Specialized activities:

As set out in Article "11. PhD supervision and monitoring" of Royal Decree 99/2011, of January 28, the Regulation on the organization of university doctorates of the University of the Balearic Islands specifies that at the time of registration, each student will be provided with a Ph.D. Student Activity Document. In accordance with the Executive Agreement 9864/2011, of July 5, on the recording of the activities of Ph.D. students ( FOU no. 351 of July 22 ), the student formally commits through a signed statement issued for this purpose, to maintain an updated record of all training activities and research carried out in the framework of the Ph.D. program. The record should include: publications in journals, attendance of meetings or scientific conferences, presentation of papers at meetings or scientific conferences, attending of courses, seminars and other training activities, research stays at other institutions, scholarships or grants received and any other information that may be relevant to their doctoral training. The material support of the record will be the software for CV management of the University of the Balearic Islands (GREC: https://webgrec.uib.es/ ) or any other that the UIB Board of Directors can determine as a replacement of that one.

It is also stated that before the end of the first year, the PhD student will develop a research plan that shall include the methodology to be used, the objectives to be achieved, and the means and timing of the implementation plan. This plan can be improved and enriched with details throughout the academic years and must be endorsed by both the tutor and the thesis supervisor. The academic committee shall evaluate the plan annually altogether with the student Activity Document and the reports issues by the supervisor thesis director. A positive evaluation is a prerequisite for continuing in the Program. In case of negative assessment, which must be properly justified, the Ph.D. student will be evaluated again within six months, for which purpose he/she will present a new research plan. In the case of a second negative assessment, the student will be set off the Program.

The procedure to be used by the Academic Committee of the Ph.D. Program in Physics to allocate a Tutor and a Thesis Supervisor to the students is as follows:

1. Each academic year the Committee shall designate a Tutor for each research line of the Program. The Tutors will be chosen among the permanent staff of the Departments and Institutes supporting the Program (UIB Dep. of Physics, IFISC and IMEDEA) that have supervised at least one Ph.D. thesis in the last five years.
2. Once the student is admitted to the Ph.D. Program, the Academic Committee will assign the Tutor corresponding to the research line chosen in the registration form.
3. The Tutor, after hearing the student, will be responsible for proposing a Thesis Supervisor to the Academic Committee from all the doctors participating in the Ph.D. program, taking into account the research topic chosen by he student and its status as a full-time or part-time student.
4. The Academic Committee will assign a Thesis Supervisor to the student no later than 2 months after his/her admission to the Program.

The changes that may occur regarding the figures of the Tutor and the Thesis Supervisor will be solved by the Academic Committee.

The Ph.D. Program in Physics contemplates the co-direction of doctoral theses basing on the following assumptions:

1. To promote multidisciplinary research. The existence of different research fields in the same university campus, where a large number of groups carry out their research, encourages interdisciplinary projects that promote the generation of new knowledge.
2. To promote the internationalization by appointing co-directors from other countries. This was already contemplated in the former Program run under the RD 778/1998 and continued in the Programs run under the RD 1393/2007.
3. To encourage the recruitment of young directors, which may accept to co-supervise a Ph.D. thesis together with more experienced staff.

The direction and supervision of training activities and the doctoral thesis conform the
" Procedures for doctorates of UIB (RD99/2011) "

• The Code of Good Practice:
  ( http://edoctorat.uib.cat/digitalAssets/271/271552_Codigo_buenas_practicas_es.pdf )
• and principles emanating from the Charter of Thesis - University of the Balearic Islands.:
  • ( http://edoctorat.uib.cat/digitalAssets/293/293664_Thesis_Agreement_letter_en.pdf ) .
  • (Abridged version to deliver duly completed and signed: http://edoctorat.uib.cat/digitalAssets/286/286053_Carta_de_tesi_per_signar_es.pdf )

The aim of the Ph.D. program in Physics is not limited to give continuity to the Degree and Master courses in Physics offered at UIB. Since its inception, this Program has had a proper outreach and has attracted many students from other universities in Spain and abroad. A main reason is that the Program offers an academic and professional training at the highest scientific level and puts the focus on the capacity to face and solve problems and make original contributions to knowledge in various fields of physics. The Program offers a multidisciplinary perspective of Physics and more specific knowledge on the research lines detailed in that section , in which the institutions supporting the program (the Department of Physics of UIB, IFISC and IMEDEA) have accredited international prestige.

The quality of the Ph.D. Program in Physics preceding the present one was recognized as early as in 2004, being awarded with the Quality Mention of ANECA. The Quality Mention was maintained in each of the follow-ups and renovations until it was replaced by the Excellence Mention (obtained in 2011). The challenge of the new Program is to follow the same path of excellence and internationalization, as a way to keep attracting students from other universities.

1. Relativity and Astrophysics.
2. Meteorology, Physical Oceanography and Climate Physics.
3. Materials Physics. Applications to engineering.
4. Quantum Physics and Statistical Physics.
5. Interdisciplinary Physics and Nonlinear Physics.
6. Physics of Complex Systems.