Courses

Courses of 3-year PhD programme

Course syllabi

file pdf Course syllabi - academic year 2025/2026 180 KB

Class timetable

Discover the doctoral class schedule and remember to get in touch with the lecturer for the GMeet/Zoom link.

Class timetable  

Educational Plan
Structure of the educational, training and student mobility plans and strategies

Each student enrolled in the Doctoral Program in “Polar Sciences” will receive a fellowship according to the Italian regulations.

Educational roadmap and activities

It is expected that the PhD community will include around 15 PhD candidates each year, carrying their research at Ca' Foscari and in the supporting universities and public research institutions, along with their supervisors and the even more numerous individuals involved in delivering the lectures and training. We expect the community to meet together for around 3 days annually (PhD Workshop) to discuss and work on polar sciences themes. 
Candidates will be assigned a scholarship in one of the areas within the six curricula and will develop their activities at one of the involved universities/public research institutions while still keeping Ca' Foscari University as administrative site of enrollment. Candidates will follow an education roadmap that include activities at three levels:

  • the inter-disciplinary PhD level (ID);
  • the specific curriculum PhD level (CU);
  • a more focused level related to the particular thematic area (TC)
Educational events

The students’ work will focus mainly on the focal discipline, although we expect some 50% of the training and around 20% of the time will be devoted to study in other disciplines. 
To guarantee a multi-disciplinary and inter-university/public research institutions education experience, students will participate in three types of educational events (including seminars, courses, workshops):

Beneficiaries: all PhD students
Duration: at least 3 days

The ID events aim to expose all PhD candidates to the full complexity of Polar regions and associated research. This events will take place each year in the form of a workshop and have to be considered mandatory for all PhD students:

  • Year 1 WS: Inter/multy disiciplinarity of Polar Sciences: an overview.
    This WS will take place in January/February each year. It will include lectures delivered by scientists working in all curricular areas which will provide candidates with high-level knowledge on the key themes of polar regions, including societal and political aspects. This will add to their understanding of the multiple challenges we face, and will help to identify the most effective solutions. 

Beneficiaries: all PhD students (for their specific curriculum)
Minimum hours: 60

The CU-events will include a series of courses (for each curriculum) providing a broad overview of the relevant research topics: 

  • year-1 CU Seasonal courses
    Students are requested to attend 4 topical lectures on some of the themes related to their work choosing from the list of courses (see Course syllabi)

Mandatory courses managed by Phd Office to be attended: Scientirfic Writing, Research Ethics.

Beneficiaries: all PhD students 
Minimum hours: 64

These refer mostly to: seminars, single-theme and single-disciplinary courses, PhD Schools, supplementary teaching activities
TC-events will be agreed by PhD students with their supervisors and will mostly be held at the universities/public research institutions where students are conducting their research.

Training activities

Besides the mentioned educational activities, any students should be involved in the following training activities: 

  • Stimulus to inter-disciplinarity. The research and training activities of any doctoral student should involve at least two pillars among those of interest for the doctoral program.
  • Mobility of students. It is considered a significant training activity for the doctoral program. Therefore, it will be constantly stimulated and valorised during the whole doctoral program.

Any other activities the Doctoral Committee states for the students year by year. 

Apart from the annual multi-disciplinary workshop, all Curriculum events should take place during the first year, leaving more room for the doctoral research project and the mandatory period abroad (6 months even not consecutive) in the following two years.
Thematic courses and seminars events (TC) may take place over the three-year period.