The program of PhD in Industrial Engineering (DEI) was first offered in the academic year 2008/2009 and awards the degree of Doctor of Industrial Engineering after the approval of the doctoral thesis. The doctoral program, is structured in accordance with the Bologna process and the typical duration is 3 years at full time (180 ECTS), corresponding the first year to the curricular component (Doctoral Course) and the subsequent 2 years to the research and thesis development component.
The aim of the doctoral program in Industrial Engineering is to offer high-level education in this scientific, enlarging the knowledge frontiers.
The Industrial Engineering has a markedly cross-domain character. This transversal character is reflected on the diverse range of areas where such knowledge frontier broadening can cover. Indeed, the proposed studies plan offers areas such as Logistics, the Operations Management, the Quality Engineering, Information Technologies and Systems, or Ergonomics. Moreover, it should be noted, that the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering evidences a sustained and diversified experience of doctorates in these scientific domains, naturally potentiating the conditions of success for the development of research projects.
The proposed curricular route offers the doctoral students the opportunity to update their knowledge in some of the above mentioned areas. This enrichment is provided along with a more general curricular education, mainly oriented to the domain of research methodologies and qualitative and quantitative methods to support research. The goal is to achieve an objective of methodological nature, ensuring the establishment of basic foundations, to build upon, strong and consistently, the production of new knowledge. In the same framework, a complementary objective is to stimulate the argumentation ability in the doctoral students, based on current scientific knowledge and tested in public confrontation, through the systematic use of oral presentations about the evolution of their research projects.
Thus, the overall goal is for the PhDs in Industrial Engineering to demonstrate the ability to develop university-level research autonomously in their knowledge domain and/or to transport and introduce innovative approaches to the enterprise environment.
In any case, their ability to develop, integrate, communicate and learn new concepts will, in a more strict sense, be an added value for the organizations in which they are integrated and, in a more broad sense, to the whole society.