• In agreement with their thesis supervisor, doctoral students submit the composition of their CSI committee to the ED (Proposal for CSI committee members). Departments validate these committees. If the committee changes, D2s, D3s, etc. must submit their new committees via the same link.
• The CSI comprises a minimum of two members, who must be from outside the doctoral student’s campus/site and hold an HDR. They must not have signed any articles with the doctoral student’s host team in the previous 5 years.
  • a member specialized in the discipline or related to the field of the thesis;
  • one non-specialist member from outside the thesis research field.
• One of the members must be a BioSPC HDR (outside the doctoral student’s institute) and a BioSPC member. The list of BioSPC HDRs is available here :  https://edbiospc.fr/
• One of the members is from outside UPC and Institut Pasteur. 
• An additional – OPTIONAL – ‘expert’ member may be invited in the first year, but do not need to hold an HDR. He/she may change during the course of the thesis. He/she may be a member of the campus/site, but will not sign the CSI minutes or take part in phases II and III of the meeting (see §4 below).
• Emeritus professors and researchers can be members.
• Members of the individual monitoring committee cannot be “rapporteurs”, but they can be examiners or chairmen (except for emeritus members) during the defense.
• The CSI coordinators at each institute (below) can provide advice on setting up these committees.

List of referrers sorted by site:

Link to submit the composition of your CSI committee :

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeuwINiVrU4fOpjRGshwh7kVe356o-xKtjITv2dpFvLlHDwHQ/viewform

Doctoral students who wish to keep their previous year’s CSI committee may do so even if their composition does not comply with the above rules. They must nevertheless submit the composition of their committee via the same link above, and will need to contact these members to arrange their interview.

• Doctoral students will be notified by e-mail of the validity of their committee.

• Doctoral students will receive an e-mail inviting them to complete their annual reports.
• This e-mail is very important – don’t share it, don’t lose it – because it contains a link that is specific to you and which directs you to a CSI form pre-filled with the information we have at the Doctoral School.

  Before filling in this CSI form, make sure that the composition of your committee has been validated by the Doctoral School (step #1).
  You will need to complete this CSI form by providing details of the training you have taken and the progress of your thesis work. You also have the opportunity to make corrections to the pre-filled information, which will be updated in our database at the end of this year’s CSI campaign.

• ⚠ Please pay particular attention to entering the correct e-mail addresses of your CSI committee members and thesis supervisors, as these will be used in the following steps.
• If you wish, you can take part in an experiment we are launching this year, which involves attaching to your scientific report a self-assessment of the skills you feel you have acquired so far.
  You can do this via this Google form: https://forms.gle/71h1NpfT6QuCYby39.
  Once you have completed the form, you will receive a PDF by email, which you can add to your CSI report.
• Your annual report must be validated by your thesis supervisor!
• As soon as you have validated your report, at least 48 hours before your interview, you and your thesis director will receive a copy of your report by e-mail.
• At the same time, this report is sent to all the members of your committee.

➔ Once the CSI form has been submitted, doctoral students will be invited to organize the meeting with their committee, assisted by their thesis director.

• They are responsible for finding a date that suits their committee members and thesis director, and for communicating the date and venue of the meeting to all participants in their ISC.
• They reserve a room for the meeting and/or provide a videoconference link if one of the committee members is participating remotely.
• The duration of these meetings is left to the discretion of the doctoral student and thesis director, but we recommend meetings of at least 45min (see §3). In addition, please allow an extra 15 minutes in your timetable to give your committee enough time to write its report.
• When planning your meeting, bear in mind the deadlines by which your committee must submit its report to the doctoral school:D1 and D2: October 15
  D3 requesting a 4th year with a new type of funding: End of July
  D1, D2, and D3 requiring VISA renewal: End of July
• Doctoral students are encouraged to use the PowerPoint template provided by the doctoral school: https://edbiospc.fr/Extra/CSI_Template.pptx

Interviews are organized once a year in terms of four distinct stages (in total, at least 45 min):

• I – Presentation of work progress and discussion: doctoral students are strongly encouraged to use the presentation templates.
• II – Interview with the doctoral student without the thesis supervisor
• III – Interview with thesis supervisor without doctoral student
• IV – Committee report (allow 15 min for this part)

Only members 1 and 2 take part in phases II, III and IV. The optional additional expert does not take part in these phases.

We ask you to give preference to face-to-face interviews. Doctoral students and/or their thesis supervisors will be responsible for setting up a videoconference link if some committee members need to attend the interview remotely.

Committee members can be contacted if necessary outside the annual ISC meeting.

➔ Your CSI committee members receive your report and a link to fill in their report online (allow a slot in the schedule for your committee to fill it in right after your meeting).

The e-mail sent to your committee includes reminders of the main BioSPC ISC rules concerning:
– The constitution of the CSI Committee
– Annual review procedures
– The content of the committee report and how to submit it.

• The members of the CSI committee – without the additional expert – write up the CSI report at the end of the interview (include this time in the committee’s schedule, in addition to the recommended minimum of 45 minutes), following the link contained in the e-mail accompanying the pre-filled CSI form sent by the doctoral students.
• The committee makes recommendations on re-registration and gives its opinion on the doctoral student’s progress and training.
• Once members #1 and #2 have validated the report – only one report per committee – they each receive a copy.
  At the same time, the report is sent to the doctoral school.
  At this stage, neither you, nor your thesis director, nor the additional expert member receives the report.

  
  ⚠ Please note that only one report will be accepted per doctoral student, so both members must agree on who will submit it.

• Committee members are expressly requested not to forward their reports to either doctoral students or thesis supervisors.
• If the committee observes any difficulties, it should point them out in the report sent to the ED.

➔ Once your committee has submitted its report, it is received by the Doctoral School.

• If no problems are reported, the final reports are sent back by the ED to the doctoral students and the PhD supervisors.
• If a problem is detected, the ED takes any necessary measures concerning the doctoral student’s situation and the progress of his or her doctorate. More specifically, department directors will organize a hearing with the doctoral student and thesis director to determine whether the problem is :
  – an incident with no serious consequences (e.g. difficult dialogue between supervisee and supervisor) that can be resolved with a short follow-up (<2 months).
  – a deeper problem requiring mediation.
   
  • In the event of deeper problems or problems that cannot be resolved by short follow-up, department directors must set up a mediation unit comprising at least two people chosen from among the department directors or members of the department office. The department must ensure that there is no conflict/link of interest between the mediation unit, the doctoral student, the thesis director or the research team.
  • If, during the examination of the files, it emerges that the problems relate to scientific integrity, discrimination or violence, they will be forwarded to the ad hoc units of the institutions on which the host laboratories depend. These units will keep the ED informed of the progress of the files. In these 2 cases, the files are considered to be “In mediation”, even if they are not being handled by BioSPC members.
• The Collège des ED (CED) can be informed by the ED management and can take up cases it considers to be more serious. Otherwise, the department directors will call on the members of their office or investigate the case directly.

  
  NB: If one of the department directors is in the doctoral student’s institute/campus, he or she will withdraw from the case and pass it on to a member of his or her office.

• If, despite the difficulties encountered, the CSI committee recommends re-enrolment, the report sent by the ED to doctoral students and thesis directors will not mention the nature and details of these malfunctions, nor who informed the ED of them. The report will mention that the committee has noted malfunctions and alerted the doctoral school.
• A specific follow-up procedure is put in place if the CSI committee does not recommend re-registration. The CSI report is not forwarded in such cases.