Teaching Activities and Credits

The discipline-specific training credits required by individual PhD programmes are earned by taking part in laboratory activities, seminars, conferences, study periods abroad and advanced training courses organised as part of the student’s training programme, as well as by preparing publications.

The PhD student, together with their Supervisor, reports on the activities undertaken during the year by completing the annual research activity report. As an exact numerical accounting of teaching activities is not required, the distribution of credits among the various activities may be considered relatively flexible.

Activities offered by individual programmes can be found in the dedicated section of this website (under “Training Programme”), or on the pages managed by the PhD programmes (“Go to the Programme Homepage”).

The internal regulations of each PhD programme determine the number of university credits (CFU) that may be awarded for each activity.

Discipline-specific teaching activities include:

•  specialist courses and seminar series offered by the PhD programme, in accordance with the schedule established annually by the programme’s Board of Professors;

•  courses, seminars and conferences organised by the University, whose suitability in relation to the PhD student’s training and research objectives is assessed by the programme’s Board of Professors, which also determines the number of credits to be awarded;

•  courses, seminars and conferences organised by other universities, research institutions or companies, whose suitability in relation to the PhD student’s training and research objectives is assessed by the programme’s Board of Professors, which also determines the number of credits to be awarded.

Teaching activities may also be organised jointly by multiple PhD programmes.

Transversal teaching activities must be agreed upon in advance with the student’s Supervisor.

Each year, the IUSS – Ferrara 1391 University Institute for Advanced Studies organises a range of courses for students enrolled in PhD programmes. It publicises its training provision through its website and by sending specific notices to all PhD students at the email address assigned to each student by the University of Ferrara: nome.cognome@unife.it (students are advised to consolidate this address with any other email accounts they use).

PhD students must earn 20 credits from transversal activities during the first two years, choosing, in agreement with the Coordinator and Tutor, two or more of the following activities, each of which carries 5 credits:

•  English language courses taught by native speakers;

•  Language examination preparation classes and certifications: interested PhD students may sit, free of charge, examinations leading to internationally recognised certificates such as PET, FIRST and CAE;

•  Italian language courses for international students organised by the University Language Centre;

•  Seminar series on communication techniques;

•  Intellectual Property Protection and Technology Transfer;

•  Advanced Computing;

•  Basic and Advanced Project Design Workshops;

•  Ethics;

•  PhD Studies and the World of Work;

•  Research Management, Knowledge of Research Systems and Funding.

These initiatives are supplemented from year to year.

View the course offerings  →