The governing structure consists of the Directive Board (DB), supported by the Evaluation Committee (EC) and the students’ Steering Committees (SC), and the External Advisory Committee (EAC). It fulfills the relevant regulations of the university PIs and relies on their services to implement the day-to-day operation of the programme.
DIRECTIVE BOARD (DB)
The DB, chaired by the Programme Director (PD), consists of the responsible researchers from the PIs (sponsors) and one third-year student. The PD will appoint an executive panel, with DB members and/or staff from its institution for the daily tasks of the PhD Programme management. Besides approving and enacting the committees’ decisions and recommendations, the main roles of the DB are to interact with the pertinent bodies of the host universities and assess/implement the recommendations of the BoA, to ensure the implementation of their policies and regulations, namely those related to the selection and examination of students.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (EC)
The EC is chaired by the PD and consists of the other DB members and the scientific coordinators of the PhD programme in civil Engineering in each of the PIs plus the President of the Scientific Council of LNEC, or their representatives, as to ensure adequate representation of the research areas. The EC annually implements the recruiting procedure, supports and monitors the implementation of the advertising strategy and organizes the annual summer school.
STUDENT STEERING COMMITTEES (SC)
The SC assigned to each student consists of the supervisors and two faculty members with appropriate scientific expertise. One member accumulates the role of mentor (see 6.2). The SC meets promptly to review the proposed thesis topic and the research plan and yearly for progress assessment and reporting to the student and the DB. The SC may recommend the termination of programmes of underachieving students.
EXTERNAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (EAC)
The EAC consists of three leading scientists. They should be aware of the challenges the units face and of their missions and strategic objectives. The main competence of this committee is to assess periodically the adequacy of the programme organization, the quality of the scientific environment, the quality and the relevance of the theses in the international context, mainly in what regards their outcome in knowledge and technology transfer.