Educational Programme

Educational Programme

The fundamental educational aim is to equip the students with a set of skills necessary to identify new, innovative and applicable research problems, and to conduct research according to the highest, international level, with the use of state-of-the-art analytical methods and techniques. Studies at the Doctoral School will enable the students to gain up-to-date, specialist knowledge in the field of exact and natural sciences as well as engineering and technology, and to develop interdisciplinary understanding of the ways in which the environment operates in the context of global climate changes. The School will enable wider dissemination of knowledge and study results within the academia and the society at large.

Education in the IEDS is provided in the disciplines of Mathematics, Earth and related environmental sciences, and Biological sciences  (in the field of Natural Sciences), and Materials Engineering (in the field of Engineering and technology).

Substantive description

Requirements to enter qualification procedure

To enter the qualification procedure, each candidate must:

1. Create a personal account in irk.us.edu.pl and fill a form containing relevant declarations and consents;
2. Submitting through irk.us.edu.pl the following documents and information: 
• curriculum vitae,
• an authorized copy of master’s degree along with the supplement
• The the list of the scientific achievements and documents certifying the achievements, as well as a cover letter, via polarknow@us.edu.pl within the recruitment schedule
3. Pay the admission fee of 400,00 PLN.

Requirements to admission

Candidates will be evaluated by the IEDS Recruitment Committee, described in §7 of the Resolution No. 493 of the Senate of the University of Silesia in Katowice passed on 23 January 2024 concerning admission requirements and mode of recruitment. The recruitment will be carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Rules and Regulations for granting NCN research scholarships in research projects financed from the funds of the National Science Centre introduced by Resolution of the Council of the National Science Centre No. 124/2022 of 1 December 2022, and in accordance with the rules in force in this Entity. On the basis of the submitted list of scientific achievements and the conducted admission interview.

The evaluation procedure consists of 2 stages:

A. STAGE I – preliminary evaluation of candidates

Candidates who have submitted the form of scientific achievements in accordance with the recruitment schedule are admitted to this stage of evaluation. The form of scientific achievements of the candidate will be made available through the IEDS website.

the candidate’s scientific achievements, including publications in renown publishing houses/scientific journals (50% of the final assessment):

• 4 points – extraordinary;
•  3 points – very good;
•  2 points – good;
•  1 point – poor;
•  0 points – no scientific achievements.

achievements resulting from conducting scientific research, scholarships, awards and scientific experience gained at home or abroad, scientific workshops and training, participation in research projects (20% of the final assessment):

• 4 points – outstanding  achievements (including scholarships, internships in leading foreign centers, prestigious international awards or distinctions, workshops or training in leading scientific centers, participation in international or foreign projects);
• 3 points – major achievements (scholarships, internships in good domestic and foreign centers, national awards or prizes, workshops or training abroad or nationwide, participation in domestic or foreign projects);
• 2 points – moderate achievements (local awards or prizes, workshops or training, participation in university projects);
• 1 point – minor achievements;
• 0 points – no achievements.

competences to carry out specific tasks in the research project (30% of the final assessment):

• 3 points – very good;
• 2 points –  good;
• 1 point – poor;
• 0 points – lack of competence.

B. STAGE II – interviews with candidates

Recruitment interview assesses

• (i) the general qualifications and knowledge of the candidates in the discipline in which the doctoral dissertation will be completed,
• (ii) English proficiency, and
• (iii) motivation and aptitude to conduct scientific work. During the interviews, the candidates will be required to give a 10 minute presentation about their achievements to date and their strengths in the context of the PhD project.

Candidates who do not receive at least 50% points cannot be qualified to enter the program.

Therefore, the commission may decide not to accept any of the candidates and announce another recruitment under the same conditions.

Schedule

• July 3, 2025 — opening online registration for candidates in OAS (https://irk.us.edu.pl/en-gb/).
• August 24, 2025 — closing of the registration of candidates in IRK, up to this date the candidate must creating an account in the IRK online recruitment system, paying the recruitment fee (the date of transfer is decisive) and entering the required information and documents.
• August 24, 2025 — Deadline for delivery of required documents (see Information regarding the required documents on the last page)
• September 4, 2025 – assessment of the scientific achievements of the candidates (1st stage of the recruitment procedure) by the recruitment committee.
• September 5, 2025 - providing candidates with information about the results of the 1st stage of recruitment and the admission or non-admission for interviews, as well as notification of the date and place of interviews.
• September 15-19,  2025 - interviews with candidates (2nd stage of the recruitment procedure).
• September 22,  2025 - notification of candidates about the recruitment results.
• September 23-24,  2025 - receiving documents from candidates qualified for admission and inclusion of them on the list of doctoral students.
• September 25,  2025 - notification of admission to candidates from the reserve list.
• September 26-29, 2025 -  receiving documents from candidates qualified for admission from the reserve list and inclusion of them on the list of doctoral students.
• September 30, 2025 - the date of announcing the results of the recruitment procedure on the IEDS website.

Scholarship

1. the scholarship for the first 36 months will be financed within the funds of the NCN SONATA project no. 2024/55/D/ST10/01998, titled: Construction of Effective Procedures for Distributed Acoustic Sensing Data Processing in order to Better Understand the Dynamics of the Hans Glacier, led by dr inż. Wojciech Gajek. The amount of the doctoral scholarship within the project will be PLN 5000 gross per month for the first 24 months and PLN 6500 gross for the next 12 months.

2. the last 12 months will be financed from the funds the International Environmental Doctoral School in accordance with the the Act of 20 July 2018. – Law on higher education and science (Journal of Laws of 2023, item 742).

Additionally, the PhD student can apply for external funding such as NCN Preludium grant.