All terms of the thesis defense are described on the web pages of the Collège des écoles doctorales (CED).

 

The defense procedure is entirely online. To obtain access to the thesis-démat software, which allows you to undertake all the steps, you must communicate, within an incompressible period of three months (D-90) between the beginning of the procedure and the actual date of the defense:

- The jury of your thesis with all the details on the members (grade, professional affiliation, rank, HDR, CV for foreigners researchers not full professor)

 - The most conservative defense date possible: it is possible to postpone the date but not to advance it during the procedure.

 The email that is sent following the validation of the ED is automatically directed to your u-paris student address: you must make sure that you have access to it and/or make a redirection to your usual email address.

 You must pay particular attention to all the deadlines that frame the procedure and submit the different documents in due time. The doctoral school will help you with the procedure but can not take over from you.

  

Concerning the constitution of the committee, the rules are as follows: 

• it must comprise at least four and at most eight members (appart from invited members);
• the jury must respect a balanced representation of men and women. Except for duly justified exceptions, the difference between the genders may not be greater than two (e.g. for a jury of 5: 3 women and 2 men and not 4 women and 1 man);
• the French reporters must hold an HDR;
• the two reporters should be external to Université de Paris and to the ED (that is to say, not on the list of supervisors),  and must not have published with the student or with his thesis advisor(s) for the last five years;
• at least half the members (appart from invited members) must be external to Université de Paris, to the ED (that is to say, not on the list of supervisors), and to the laboratory where the thesis was conducted; are also considered as internal the collaborators of the PhD advisor(s), i.e. those having co-published with them for the last five years;
• when there are two PhD co-advisors, one of the advisors shall be an invited member of the jury;
• at least half of the committee members must be of rank A (full professor or equivalent);
• the presence on the committee of someone representing UPD (a professor or associate professor in UPD or a scientist from a laboratory of UPD, holding his "habilitation à diriger des recherches") is mandatory;
• anyone who has published with the student, appart from his advisors, cannot be a member of the jury, but he can be invited.