Suspending doctoral studies

Students can be granted suspension of their doctoral studies in the following cases::

• maternity, paternity, adoption and fostering, for both compulsory and optional leave periods
• illness or accident lasting more than 30 days, appropriately documented
• particularly serious personal or family reasons, by request to, and with the authorisation of the Academic Board. These reasons must be documented
• trial period, for doctoral students employed on open-ended contracts in Public Administration bodies. In this case, the scholarship must be given up for the entire period of suspension.

In all these cases, the granting of the scholarship is interrupted and reinstated when the doctoral programme is resumed.

Requests to suspend a doctoral programme must be made using the form Richiesta sospensione dottorato (Doctoral Studies Suspension Request), accompanied by a certificate justifying the request. The request must be approved by the Academic Board, except in cases of maternity and illness lasting more than 30 days, which only require acknowledgement by the course coordinator and completion of the form for the sole purpose of requesting optional maternity leave.

At the end of the suspension period, the doctoral student will resume his/her studies, having notified the course coordinator and the Doctoral Students Administration Office. The training and research programme, redefined by the Board, is deferred for a length of time equal to the period of suspension.

Upon resumption of the study programme, doctoral students without a scholarship who suspend their studies for an entire academic year, are obliged to pay a suspension fee of 200 Euro.