IBEC Doctoral Certificate of Excellence and the Doctoral Award for predoctoral researchers

REQUIREMENTS

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1. Three months on an international research placement. The visit may be to a university, a hospital, a company or a research centre. Visits of at least 2 weeks can be accumulated in order to reach the 3-month period.
   For stays within Spain, IBEC direction will assess whether they can be considered for the award.
2. One indexed peer reviewed international publication in the first quartile as first author (with IBEC affiliation), or alternatively, one contribution to a patent as inventor
3. Two oral participations at an international meeting as presenting author. One of the oral participation can be a flash presentation at IBEC Symposium
4. Attendance in the following courses organized by IBEC (or proof of attendance to similar courses) on:
   – One course on writing skills (or alternatively 2 peer reviewed international publications, as first author, including the mandatory publication (see point 2.)).
   – Presentation skills (or alternatively 3 oral participations at an international meeting as presenting author, including the 2 mandatory oral participations  (see point 3.).
   – Good practices in a multi-disciplinary laboratory (mandatory for 1st year predoctoral researchers working in wet labs; optional for those in computational research groups).
   – One course on technology Transfer and/or IP rights.
   – Research Integrity.
   – One additional optional course
5. Participation in outreach activities (fairs, outreach blog, work with high school students, giving talks, etc) (minimum 10 hours).
6. Attendance at Seminars: A minimum of 20 scientific seminars must be attended. When the PhD fellow is seconded to another institution for more than 3 months, the minimum number will be reduced proportionally to the time that the fellow is physically at IBEC. If the seminar is not at IBEC, a certificate of attendance must be provided, using for instance this template.
7. Attendance at IBEC PhD Discussions: A minimum of 15 IBEC PhD Discussions must be attended. When the PhD fellow is seconded to another institution for more than 3 months, the minimum number will be reduced proportionally to the time that the fellow is physically at IBEC.
   If the candidate has been chairman of the PhD discussions or member of IBEC PhD Committee, the minimum number will be reduced to 12. If both circumstances apply, the minimum number will be reduced to 10.
8. Lecture in a PhD Discussion.
9. The PhD thesis must be submitted within 4 years of admission to the doctoral programme. If the PhD thesis is submitted in less than 4 years after admission to the doctoral programme, the required number of attendance to IBEC seminars and PhD discussions will be proportionally reduced.

Due to the exceptional circumstances during Covid-19 pandemia following requirements will be revised case by case: 1, 4.c), 5 and 9.

In exceptional circumstances, these requirements could be replaced by outstanding scientific achievements (eg. awards, paper in Nature/Science as first author, patent licensed, spin off created, etc) upon the decision of IBEC’s directorate.

THE CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE:

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All PhD fellows meeting the  requirements will receive a certificate in the IBEC Symposium and a prize of 150€ to cover expenses related to the defense of their PhD thesis.

PROCEDURE:

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Once the PhD fellow has defended his/her PhD thesis, he/she should submit the application form to hr@ibecbarcelona.eu together with the following documents in PDF format:

• Certificate of the PhD thesis defense
• Certificate showing the date of admission in the doctoral programme
• Certificates of oral participation at international meetings as presenting authors (programme, diploma, etc)
• Certificates of attendance at the training courses
• Certificates of participation in outreach activities
• Certificates of mobility stays
• Certificates of attendance to non-IBEC seminars

In order to take into account publications that might be under review or in preparation at the time of the PhD thesis defense, the application form may be submitted up to one year after the defense.

Notwithstanding, the other merits (courses, seminars, training, etc) are related to the PhD period.

If the candidate meets all the requirements, they will automatically receive the prize of 150€. The certificate will be issued at the following IBEC Symposium. If the candidate is not able to attend the symposium, he/she will receive the certificate by mail.

Download the application form here

Transitionary phase

Those PhD students already at IBEC will also be able to apply for the certificate. In these cases, the minimum number of attendance to IBEC seminars and PhD Discussions, as well as the participation in outreach activities, will be proportionally reduced to the time from March 2017 to the date of defense of the thesis. The courses on Good Practice at the Laboratory and Research Integrity will not be mandatory. The rest of the requirements remain the same.

The minimum number of attendanceS to IBEC seminars and PhD discussions will be proportionally reduced according to the time when we started recording attendance (June 2017).

For questions or doubts don’t hesitate to contact our HR Unit.

Additionally, all candidates that received a Doctoral Certificate of Excellence will be elegible for a Doctoral Award. The awardees will receive a prize of 500€ in an award ceremony at the IBEC Symposium upon the following criteria (in decreasing order of importance: first we will look at criterium 1, and if there is a tie, we will look at criterium 2, etc.)

1. Number of publications as first author in first decile journals
2. Number of publications as first author in first quartile journals
3. Number of publications in first decile journals
4. Number of publications in first quartile journals

To be eligible for the Doctoral Award, more than 4 candidates who meet the requirements must have submitted to the call.

If one year due to a lack of participants entering the competition, the Award is not awarded, those candidates presented in previous calls will be automatically reserved for subsequent years until the minimum of 5 candidates is met.

The awards that will be awarded will follow the following proportion of candidatures presented:

• From 5 to 9 candidates: 2 awards
• As of 10 candidates: 3 awards