First-year doctoral students are expected to attend at least 120 hours chosen from the teaching and laboratory activities provided by the programme.
They will select the activities with the advice of their tutor, having regard to the needs stemming from their previous training and the research project.
Similarly, in the second and third years students are expected to attend at least 40 and 20 hours, respectively. Each year doctoral students are expected to submit an essay to be discussed with the members of the ‘Collegio dei docenti’, and presented during a seminar attended by other doctoral students. Approval of the essay by the Collegio is mandatory for admission to the next year.
First year doctoral students are required to attend expressly dedicated tutorials, lectures and seminars for at least 120 hours in areas chosen in agreement with their tutor, having regard to their research topic; in the curriculum on Cognitive science, this will include substantial laboratory work.
In the second and third years doctoral students are expected to attend the same teaching activities for at least 80 and 40 hours respectively, as theyr will focus mainly on their dissertation. For many of the students training will include stages in firms and research institutions, in Italy and abroad. At the end of each year students are expected to submit a paper to be discussed with the Collegio dei docenti and with their colleagues.
Approval of the paper by the Collegio is mandatory for admission to the next year.
All the faculty belonging to the ‘Collegio dei docenti’ have a vast international experience in their field. Each year the call for applications for new doctoral fellowships is circulated through International networks such as H-Net, the Philos-L (Archives of Philosophy in Europe) newsletter, the Society for the Social Studies of Science, and the newsletters of the European Society for Analytic Philosophy and the History of Science Society (USA). Given the presence of several foreign students, most of the teaching and tutoring activities within the programme are carried out in English. Several final dissertations, both by Italian and by foreign students, are written in English. Several of the seminars organized each year are delivered by foreign scholars, conveying hints of the kind of knowledge and know-how pursued within the research institutions of other countries.
By the end of the second year, doctoral students with a fellowship are expected to write, as authors or co-authors, a paper of a quality such as to be considered for publication by an established journal in the field, or as a chapter in a book. Doctoral students not benefitting from a fellowship are expected to achieve the same by the end of their third year. By the end of the second year doctoral, students with a fellowship are expected to attend at least two national or international conferences, submitting posters or papers as authors or co-authors. Doctoral students not benefitting from a fellowship are expected to achieve the same by the end of their third year. The doctoral dissertation, preferably written in English, must possess originality and an overall quality such as to become, after some additional work, a publishable book.
For more detailed information oh PhD activities organized by the PhD Programma, please see Teaching section