Objectives and competences

The Doctoral Program in Chemistry, developed under the current University of Navarra Rules for Doctoral Programs and the General Rules of the School of Sciences, has the ultimate goal of training highly qualified PhDs who possess a broad perspective on research, who are trained in the basic competences established in the Spanish Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (MECES) and who can achieve the specific objectives of the program.

Objectives

The general objectives of the doctoral program are:

• To educate and train future professionals who possess a scientific and critical spirit, a capacity for experimental methodological design, practical laboratory skills, and communication and teamwork skills.

• To train students to work independently within the field of research.

• To enable students to achieve a broad understanding of chemistry techniques and methods for applied research.

• To provide students with a sense of ethics in their research that enables them to offer an efficient service to society with honesty, responsibility, teamwork and a spirit of solidarity.

Competences 

The basic competences, capabilities and personal skills, and specific competences described below are required for students to be awarded the title of PhD and are translated into the corresponding learning outcomes.

The program ensures that PhDs will acquire the following basic competences:

• CB11 - Systematic understanding of a field of study and mastery of the research skills and methods related to that field.

• CB12 - The ability to conceive, design and create, put into practice and adapt a substantial research or creative process.

• CB13 - The ability to contribute to expanding the frontiers of knowledge through original research.

• CB14 - The ability to undertake critical analysis and evaluation and the synthesis of new and complex ideas.

• CB15 - The ability to communicate with the academic and scientific community and with society in general about their fields of knowledge, using the means and language typically used in the international scientific community.

• CB16 - The ability to encourage scientific, technological, social, artistic and cultural progress in academic and professional contexts, within a knowledge-based society. 

The PhD awarded through this program also enables the achievement of a high level of professional training, specifically demonstrated in the acquisition of the following personal abilities and skills:

• CA01 - The ability to work in contexts where there is limited specific information.

• CA02 - Finding key questions that must be answered in order to resolve a complex problem.

• CA03 - Designing, creating, developing and undertaking novel and innovative projects within their field of knowledge.

• CA04 - Working both as part of a team and independently in an international or multidisciplinary context.

• CA05 - Integrating knowledge, dealing with complexity and formulating opinions based on limited information.

• CA06 - Intellectual criticism and defense of solutions.

At the same time, the doctoral program includes the specific competences related to the field of applied chemistry, as follows:

• CE01 - Applying knowledge of chemistry acquired in order to propose and carry out a research project within an applied context, with the goal of resolving a complex problem and defending that solution through arguments based on specific principles of chemistry that corroborate the proposed solution.

• CE02 - Being able to prepare and execute, as a supervisor, a safety protocol (general rules, handling of toxic or flammable substances, disposal of waste, devices or instrumentation and facilities) for laboratory research work and/or development within the field of chemistry.

• CE03 - Ability to evaluate research projects/developments/patents/teaching programs, etc. in their area of specialization, within the framework of predicting their likelihood to lead to advances in existing knowledge or practices.

• CE04 - Ability to integrate knowledge in response to a chemistry-related problem and to acquire the ability to formulate predictable opinions based on the initial hypothesis using limited information that enables various solutions to be proposed, anticipating potential financial and/or environmental risks, as well as ethical implications.

• CE05 - Technical and scientific competence to achieve precise and reproducible results, based on which one can draw valid conclusions within the specific profile of the work of the chemist.

List of competences (.pdf)