Supervision

The supervision of the doctoral thesis is carried out by the supervisor(s) and the supervisory panel.

Who can supervise a doctoral thesis :

• Tenured UCLouvain staff members;
• Permanent designated representatives of F.R.S.-FNRS at UCLouvain (research associate, senior research associate, research director) ;
• Permanent research and teaching staff at UCLouvain.

The candidate may have more than one supervisor if it is justified by the theme of the research. Each supervisor must meet the criteria of eligibility to supervise a thesis.

Role of the supervisor :

• create the supervisory panel ;
• advise the doctoral student on their choice of activities within their doctoral training programme ;
• personally supervise the work related to the preparation of the thesis ;
• propose the doctoral jury in consultation with the supervisory panel.

It is up to the doctoral student to contact their supervisor at the beginning of the thesis to establish the methods for monitoring their research.

Composition: the supervisor(s) and two other members (one of whom is not part of the supervisor(s) research team). Members of the supervisory panel must hold the rank of doctor (or demonstrate an equivalent level of expert knowledge).

Role of the supervisory panel : 

• guide and advise the doctoral student in their research orientation;
• allow the doctoral student to expand their network of scientific contacts;
• advise the doctoral student in developing their doctoral training program;
• evaluate the quality of the doctoral student’s scientific work.

The supervisory panel and the doctoral student should meet at least once a year.