PhD Quality Assurance
ANVUR has proposed a new Model for the periodic accreditation of premises, Departments, University Courses and PhD programmes (AVA 3). This is in response to a need that emerged at European level and was supported by ENQA 'European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education' and EQAR 'European Quality Assurance Register'.
The model which is specifically for PhD courses, is:
- D.PHD.1 - PhD Course Design
- D.PHD.2 - Planning and organising training and research for the advancement of PhD students
- D.PHD.3 - Monitoring and improvement
The PhD pathway is on the third level of education and the Dublin Descriptors outline its objectives:
Knowledge and understanding
Students who have systematically demonstrated understanding of a field of study and mastery of the related research method.
Applying knowledge and understanding
Ability to apply their knowledge and understanding that demonstrates a professional approach to their work, and possession of appropriate skills both to devise and support arguments and solve problems in their field of study.
Independent judgement
Ability to collect and interpret data (usually in one's own field of study) considered useful for making independent judgement, including reflection on related social, scientific or ethical issues
Communication skills
Being able to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to specialists and non-specialists.
Learning skills
Having developed those learning skills that are necessary to undertake further studies with a high level of independence.
In order to meet AVA3 requirements, the PhD course in PhD in Biological Sciences and Applied Biotechnologies has set up a GDL_QA_PhD working group (CMR_PhD or QA_PhD contact person) as follows:
Monitoring and Self-Evaluation Committee
Silvia Perotto (Coordinator)
Daniel Edward Chamberlain (Scientific Board member)
Luisa Lanfranco (Scientific Board member)
Marco Gamba (Scientific Board member)
Marco Isaia (Scientific Board member)
Gianluca Grasso (PhD students’ representatives)
This group’s main functions are:
- Update and check the PhD web page
- Monitor training and research relevance by regularly discussing with stakeholders
- Monitor PhD student courses and research
- Continuously collect and analyse PhD student opinion questionnaires to suggest improvements (as detailed here)