The Council of the Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Higher Education, at its 18th Summit on May 15 and 16, 2017, made decisions and informs the Universities operating in the Republic as follows: For the evaluation of Doctoral Degree programmes, the following information must be attached to the application form (Form 200.1) and made available to the External Evaluation Committees during the on-site visit:
1) Student Admission Criteria and Terms
There must be defined and specific criteria that the potential students need to meet for admission in the programme as well as how the selection procedures are made
2) Programme requirements
The requirements of the doctoral degree programme must be anaysed and published, i.e. the stages of completion, the minimum and maximum time of completing the programme, the examinations, the procedures for supporting and accepting the student's proposal, the criteria for obtaining the Ph.D. degree.
3) Guidelines for writing the Ph.D. dissertation
There should be specific and clear guidelines for the writing of the proposal and the dissertation, with detailed specifications regarding the chapters it contains, the system used for the presentation of each chapter, sub-chapters and bibliography, the minimum word limit, the binding, the cover page and the prologue pages including the pages supporting the authenticity, originality and importance of the dissertation, as well as the reference to the Committee for the final evaluation.
4) Information on Plagiarism check
There must be a plagiarism check system and information given on the stages and check of plagiarism as well as the consequences in case of such misconduct.
5) Policy in reference to the Doctoral Advisory Committee and the Final Evaluation Committee for the support of the doctoral student’s’ research proposal and dissertation The number, composition, procedure and criteria for the formation of the member committee must be determined whom the doctoral student submits in writing the research proposal, as well as the Final Evaluation Committee for the final oral defense of the dissertation.
6) Supervision and evaluation
The minimum qualifications and experience that the following members should have must be determined: the supervisor-chairperson of the members of the Advisory Committee, any co-supervisors, as well as the Chairperson and the members of the Final Evaluation Committee. Also, the duties of the supervisor-Chairperson and other members of the Advisory Committee towards the student must be determined i.e. regular meetings, reports per semester and feedback from supervisors, support for writing articles and participating in conferences.
7) Number of doctoral students per supervisor
The number of doctoral students that each chairperson supervises must be determined.
8) Dissertation Repository
The process of submitting the dissertation to the university library so that it is available to the External Evaluation Committees and to the library users must be described.
