1- Main direction of the thesis
This person is attached to the same Doctoral School and belongs to the same research unit as the doctoral student.
This person is designated as the reference person for the doctoral school for the follow-up of the thesis. He or she signs all documents related to the thesis.
Co-supervision: Each international co-supervision is governed by an agreement between the partner universities. A co-supervised thesis will have a co-director in each of the two partner institutions.
2- Possible co-direction of the thesis
The scientific direction of the doctoral project (called "thesis direction") may be carried out jointly with another director who holds the HDR, called "co-director". This person is not necessarily attached to the same Doctoral School and does not necessarily belong to the same research unit as the doctoral student.
When the joint supervision is provided by a person from the socio-economic world who does not belong to the academic world, a co-supervisor may be designated in addition to this person and the thesis director (according to article 16 of the decree of May 25, 2016).
In the case of a thesis carried out at least in part in the private sector, a referent person from the private partner must be appointed to the thesis director.
3- Management team
The doctoral school also designates the supervisory team for each thesis, which identifies all the people involved in the supervision.
A researcher or teacher-researcher who does not hold the HDR and who participates in the thesis supervision team is called a "co-supervisor".
The composition of the supervisory team is indicated in the registration file, along with the percentage of supervision. The sum of the percentages of a supervisory team is 100%.
Except for justified exceptions accepted by the management of the doctoral school, a maximum of three people, including the (co)director(s), can be considered as participating in the supervision team of a thesis and the rate of participation in the supervision of each person must be at least 30% per thesis (see the table of supervision quotas in the internal regulations of the ED SVS).
A supervision team is composed of a maximum of two HDR holders (a maximum of three HDRs in the case of an international co-supervision or in the case of an interdisciplinary thesis involving another Doctoral School) and a maximum of one co-supervisor.
4- Limits of supervision in the ED SVS
A person holding the HDR attached to the Doctoral School SVS cannot participate in more than three thesis directions or co-directions.
A request for a waiver to participate in a fourth direction or co-direction may be submitted to the Doctoral School's management, which will seek the opinion of the Research Commission.
The reasons for derogation are :
- participation in a thesis direction or co-direction in partnership with the private sector (such as a CIFRE thesis)
- an international co-direction or co-supervision of a thesis, a thesis that is part of a European project such as "Innovative Training Networks" (ITN),
- a thesis in interdisciplinarity (in which the HDR of the Doctoral School SVS is not the main director).
If a thesis direction or co-direction ends before the end of the calendar year, it is not counted in the directions/co-directions of an HDR person, provided that a letter of commitment indicating the date of defense is provided to the Graduate School.