The doctoral thesis is an original piece of work based on research carried out by the doctoral student in the doctoral programme. For any information taken from and included in the thesis, the source of the information must be stated.

The doctoral student is responsible together with his/her scientific supervisor(s) for the originality and accuracy of the scientific data included in the doctoral thesis.

The title of the thesis may be changed with the agreement of the doctoral supervisor, on request, until the thesis is finalised for the PhD thesis.

The content of the thesis is agreed with the supervisor(s) and must comply with the quality standards and the rules of ethics and professional deontology specific to the field of biology.

The minimum national standards for the awarding of the doctoral title for the doctoral field Biology as set out in Annex no. 19 - Biology and Biochemistry Commission, of OMEN no. 5110 of 17 September 2018,

The following minimum standards must be met in order to be awarded a doctoral degree:

publication or acceptance for publication (with submission of proof of acceptance) of a minimum of two articles in the field of the doctoral thesis, of which at least one of the articles must be published in a journal indexed Web of Scenice as co-author and the second article must be published in a journal indexed BDI as first author;
it is acceptable for one of the articles to be "in press", provided that this is justified by an official document - in original;
recognised international databases (BDI) are: Scopus (Elsevier), Web of Scenice, CAB, ProQuest, EBSCO, CSA/Biological Sciences, Index Copernicus and SpringerLink.
PhD thesis structure

It is recommended that the volume of the PhD thesis is between 100 and 200 pages. It will contain the results of the research carried out by the doctoral student during the doctoral programme.

The structure of the thesis will be determined by the scientific supervisor of the thesis together with the doctoral student and is recommended to include the following sections: an introduction, state of knowledge in the field of the thesis topic, material and methods, results and discussion, conclusions and recommendations, bibliography, appendices, list of publications in the thesis topic. It is recommended that the results and discussion, conclusions and recommendations part should occupy about 70-80% of the thesis volume.

At the beginning of the thesis the table of contents should be inserted, structured by: chapters, sub-chapters, sections, etc., followed by a list of abbreviations used in the thesis (if applicable).

The bibliography will contain all the sources used to prepare the thesis and all titles will be cited in the text. The bibliographical list should not miss the most relevant titles in the field. The number of bibliographical titles should be in line with the volume of literature in the field of the thesis topic. Particular attention should be paid to recent literature available in prestigious journals.

Citation of bibliographic sources in the text is recommended to be done as follows: in the case of a single author (Pop, 1990), in the case of a collective of two authors (Ionescu & Popescu, 2013), in the case of a collective with more than two authors (Ionescu et al., 2000), if the same collective of authors is cited with several papers from the same year (Georgescu & Ionescu 2011a, 2011b). Internet references are cited with their web address and date of last access; for images (photos, maps, sketches, etc.) taken from other authors, their source is cited.

Writing the thesis

Recommended page settings: A4 page type, margins: left 2.5 cm, right, top and bottom: 2 cm. Header and footer: 1.5 cm. Spacing: before 0 pt; after 0 pt. Line spacing: to 1.5 lines. First line: 1.5 cm. Alignment left-right (justify). Font: Times New Roman, or Arial. Font size (excluding chapter, subchapter, etc. titles, table, figure, etc. titles): 12.

Scientific names of species are written in italics.

The cover of the thesis will be made according to the model presented in the Regulation on the organisation and conduct of doctoral studies and postdoctoral programmes. After the title page, the table of contents, the list of abbreviations (if any), the introduction, the chapters in the above order, the bibliography, the appendices and the list of publications in the thesis follow the cover page.

Page numbering starts with 1 on the first page of the table of contents and continues uninterrupted until the end of the thesis.

The thesis must be submitted to IOSUD in printed and electronic format together with the attached documents according to the requirements specified in the Regulation on the organisation and conduct of doctoral studies and postdoctoral programmes.