Engenharia Civil

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

This study cycle awards students with a doctoral degree in civil engineering and encompasses:
a) writing an original thesis which has to be specially written for this purpose and be adequate for students’ field of knowledge and specialized area;
b) the completion of course units designed for investigation, being called Doctoral Programme and awarding students with a Doctoral Programme Diploma.

The normal length of a doctoral programme is three years in a full-time basis (180 credits).

This doctoral programme comprises the following specialized areas:

• Construction;
• Structures;
• Geotechnics;
• Hydraulics, Water Resources and Environment;
• Construction Materials;
• Territorial Planning and Environment;
• Transportation Networks.

As an alternative, the study cycle may not be associated to any of these areas, being named as Doctoral Programme in Civil Engineering.

The set of course units of each student is defined by the programme director after the proposal of a supervisor, acting in accordance with the subsequent conditions:

a) Students have to complete 60 credits between the course units offered/approved in the Doctoral Programme. In these credits are included the course unit of Research Thesis Project which is worth 30 credits;
b) If the Doctoral Programme does not comprise a specialized branch, twenty credits correspond to course units in the area of Civil Engineering offered in the Doctoral Programme or others in the same area available in the University of Porto. The remaining ten credits can be collected by attending to any course units not related to the field of Civil Engineering offered by the University of Porto, including the ones offered by this Doctoral programme, which are not related to Civil Engineering;
c) If the Doctoral Programme is part of a specialized area, twenty credits correspond to course units in the area of Civil Engineering offered in the Doctoral Programme or others in the same area available in the University of Porto. Ten of those credits have to compulsory be composed by course units of the corresponding specialized area. The remaining ten credits can be collected by attending to any course units not related to the field of Civil Engineering offered by the University of Porto, including the ones offered by this Doctoral programme, which are not related to Civil Engineering;
d) The programme director can grant equivalences to the curricular component, in total or just partially, by taking into account students’ training in Portuguese or foreign universities, under the proposal of a supervisor.

The above mentioned course units are also available for other doctoral programmes in other universities, both Portuguese and foreigner, as long as they are approved by the programme scientific committee.

The definite enrolment of the applicant as a doctoral programme student only takes place after the completion of the doctoral programme. Furthermore it depends on the favourable opinion of the Scientific Committee, which takes into consideration students’ performance in the doctoral programme and thesis plan, which is part of the course unit of Research Thesis Project.

Students will complete their doctoral programme in Civil Engineering after the delivery of their thesis and its defense before a jury, according to the regulations of the University of Porto.