At the onset of the PhD, a Thesis Advisory committee (TAC) must be appointed.

Composition

The TAC consists of at least 3 members including the PhD supervisor, 1 internal (same institution as PhD hosting institution) and 1 external member, and a maximum of 5 members (all members should hold a PhD and have expertise in the topic of the thesis project).

Once a committee as been formed, please complete the TAC registration form and send it back to the DSLS coordinator (ds.biology@unine.ch) for approval.

Role

The TAC’s role is to advise the PhD candidate throughout his PhD thesis, to provide critical feedback on his research project and data interpretation, to monitor the thesis progress, and to provide support if needed.

TAC meetings

The TAC will meet once a year. The first time within the first 6 months of the PhD (ideally before the first field work or data collection)  to evaluate the project proposal feasibility and methodology.

The TAC will then meet after 18, 30, and 42 (only if needed) months after the onset of the PhD thesis.

With the exception of the 30 months' meeting, we encourage these meetings to be held online.

Procedure

Before each meeting, the PhD candidate will send the committee members a short progress report in preparation for the meeting. During the meeting, the PhD candidate will briefly present her/his work and discuss its progress and future plans with the members of the committee, who will provide direct feedback and suggestions for improvement. 

At the end of the meeting, the TAC members will briefly discuss and assess the candidate and the project by filling in and signing the online “TAC meeting report for committee members form” and return the form to the DSLS Coordinator (ds.biology@unine.ch).

The PhD candidate will have to fill in the “TAC meeting report for PhD candidate form” to summarize the feedbacks and comments that were given during the meeting.  All TAC members will be asked to review (and eventually complete if deemed necessary) the summary and sign it, before returning it to the DSLS coordinator (ds.biology@unine.ch).

Each year, the Phd student will also be asked to assess his supervision by filling in a questionnaire.

These meetings and forms are meant to evalute regularly the PhD progress, as well as the quality of the supervision, and to ensure a good follow-up of the candidate curriculum.