PhD in Arts and Humanities

Justification of the title

Goals

The Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from the ULL is a quality training proposal, with an interdepartmental and interfaculty scope, with a professional and research orientation, aimed at graduates in Arts and Humanities, with the following general objectives:

• To train expert professionals, with a doctorate degree, in the basic principles of humanistic and artistic production and in the search for new tools of analysis and interpretation.
• To train for the use of these techniques in the various areas and fields of related knowledge, incorporating research and development tasks in public or private entities of universities, or research centers applied to the arts and humanities.
• Provide adequate training in obtaining scientific information through periodical publications and databases, as well as in oral and written scientific communication, preparing for teaching activities and scientific dissemination.
• To train students to develop a scientific career by learning the scientific method, planning and executing projects and experiments, interpreting results, and drawing conclusions that allow for expanding applied knowledge in the arts and humanities, contributing to the resolution of problems in the social environment in this branch of knowledge.

Demand and social interest. Integration of the proposal into the University's R&D&I strategy.

One of the major social challenges recognised by the Spanish Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation and the EU's Horizon 2020 is the Joint Programming Initiative Cultural Heritage and Global Change: a new challenge for Europe.

Under the acronym JPI on Cultural Heritage (JPICH), the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change: A New Challenge for Europe (JPICH) is an intergovernmental initiative to promote innovative and collaborative research to streamline and coordinate national research programmes.
research, making more efficient and effective use of scarce financial resources allocated to protecting cultural heritage and its contribution to European economic growth.

Europe's cultural heritage is rich and diverse, and is a fundamental component of our individual and collective identity. In its tangible, intangible or digital forms, cultural heritage contributes to the cohesion of the European Union and plays a key role in its development by creating links between citizens.

The Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage provides a framework within which Member States work together to maximise and leverage research efforts devoted to the conservation of this cultural heritage.

In this context, JPICH launched the Vision Document in 2010, establishing a set of objectives aligned with the vision of the Europe 2020 Strategy and with the launch of the European Research Area.

The JPIHC Strategic Agenda establishes four priority areas of research:

• Promote research that enables the creation of a reflective society in a changing world.
• Connecting people to heritage and developing plans to enable its sustainable management and conservation.
• Creating knowledge to enable a better understanding of the context in which cultural heritage was formed and in which it is found. It is about promoting innovative development and addressing new approaches, applications and tools that, based on cultural heritage, generate added value for society.
• Safeguarding our cultural heritage. Exploring how we can protect it and encouraging research to support that protection.

It follows that the set of resources planned for research in the coming years is aimed at supporting research into cultural heritage, both in its theoretical dimension and in its applications linked to heritage conservation.

Furthermore, specific aspects of the Canary Islands, such as its geographical location and insularity, contribute to defining a peculiar cultural profile as a nucleus of exchanges from its earliest historical stages. On the one hand, the Canary Islands are a hub in migratory routes and in the contemporary world they have assumed the role of a reference in various competitive episodes of international culture. These peculiarities support the development of a Doctoral Programme in Art and Humanities supported by lines of research that integrate all facets of interest in Cultural Studies. The programme offers a broad coverage of doctoral training to graduates in the branch of Art and Humanities that will contribute to: 1) the promotion of the employability of highly qualified personnel in an area of great social demand and technological innovation, 2) the professional development of postdoctoral researchers in the areas of Art and Humanities, 3) the training of university teaching-research staff, and 4) the training of researchers aimed at the cultural industry.

Experience in teaching programs in the area of knowledge

The Doctoral Program in Arts and Humanities is partially derived from the Doctorates in Fine Arts, Art History, Philology, Hispanic Literature and Hispanic Linguistics that will merge into the current title:

• Fine Arts: Concept, process and techniques of the image (from the 99/01 biennium to the 01/03 biennium), Theory of the arts (from the 99/01 biennium to the 03/05 biennium), Materials, techniques and procedures in plastic arts and design (from the 02/04 biennium to the 03/05 biennium), Plastic arts creation and design (from the 04/06 biennium to the 08/10 biennium) and Artistic thought and cultural perspective (from the 04/06 biennium to the 08/10 biennium).
• Art History: Open scenarios: multiculturalism in art and music (from 2005 to 08/10).
• Philology: A program that brought together the four previous programs of Hispanic Linguistics, Hispanic Literature, Classical and Arabic Philology, and Modern Philology (from the period 1999-2001 until 2011), when the current Official Doctorate Program in Philological Studies was approved.

The justification for the proposed Doctoral Programme is based on the long tradition of these studies in the district, which is supported by a good number of doctoral theses and derived publications, as well as the number of graduates present in technical staff in the world of work.

The scientific interest of the PhD program is based on the scientific level of the professors/researchers who comprise it.

The PhD programme in Arts and Humanities condenses research activity in the areas of knowledge that have been present in the District since its creation. For this reason, and by virtue of its specialisation in studies intrinsically involved in mobility and internationalisation, the programmes offered to date have had a mobility plan guaranteed by a good number of agreements with European universities, as well as an offer especially aimed at the United States and Canada. On the other hand, the transversal and interdisciplinary nature of the work in the humanities configures a profile in which the long tradition of the studies represents a fundamental asset to guarantee competitive results.

The type of work produced by the Program's research groups is related to the cultural industries sector. They are preferably projected in the publishing sector, advising on institutional tasks in the cultural sector, including matters of cultural heritage and specifically in the area of museology, archives,
and documentation. It is also associated with artistic production, the audiovisual sector and literary creation.

With regard to this peculiarity, the research activity accredited by the program's researchers, the Doctoral Program presented:

1. It provides services to the SGAI (General Research Support Services), which have proven to be an excellent tool for job creation and transfer of results to society, in addition to supporting the research of the scientific community.

2. It provides patents, so it benefits from the improvement in innovation management and can contribute to its consolidation.

3. It contributes a significant number of researchers to the fabric of Canarian society.

4. It offers a wide range of postgraduate courses. Among the master's programmes offered by ULL in the field of arts and humanities, there are several inter-university programmes. Furthermore, there are numerous international connections in the research we are developing.

5. Multidisciplinarity is undoubtedly the characteristic feature of many of the lines of research that are achieving significant success within the Branch of Arts and Humanities.

6. The research flow of the programme shows a richness characteristic of the profile of the areas of social sciences, arts and humanities, in which there are many small research groups with specific peculiarities that are obtaining important results.

In support of this trajectory, the R&D&I strategy of the University of La Laguna included in the Strategic Plan 2014-2020, encourages mobility and internationalization, also focusing on promoting actions aimed at improving activities in Humanities and Social Sciences.

The University of La Laguna has carried out a study whose results have been made known as part of the reorganisation of Research in its different dimensions. It has been presented to the Senate of the University of La Laguna for approval at its session of 25 June 2014 under the name of Strategic Research Plan 2014/2020. It makes special mention of the Doctorate and the improvements planned in the district in its different dimensions, including the creation of a doctoral school that is currently in the implementation phase.

This plan includes various actions aimed at the transfer of research results and job creation (it should be noted that in the Canary Islands the unemployment rate is over 50% among young people). We believe that the research that will emerge as a result of this doctoral programme will benefit from many of the measures contemplated in the plan, since it will promote aspects that have existed from the start.

• Action 6 in Line EE1.3 aims to develop improvements in Innovation management and can contribute to its consolidation.
• Improving the opportunities for researchers in doctoral programmes is particularly planned in Action 17 of Line EE2.4, which defines the objective of increasing the quality and number of doctoral programmes that achieve the distinction of excellence and quality master's degrees.
• Numerous international connections are involved in the research we are developing. This will be enhanced by Action 18, aimed at promoting multidisciplinary and interuniversity academic programs with an international orientation.
• Multidisciplinarity is the objective of Action 19, as it is undoubtedly the characteristic feature of many of the lines of research that are achieving significant success within the Branch of Arts and Humanities. It is defined with the aim of promoting an integrated and global vision of the research career among research staff, with the aim of enabling them to tackle multidisciplinary projects that resolve major challenges facing society.
• The increase in the quality of our results thanks to Action 20, promotes the study of incentive processes to guarantee the international mention of the theses defended at ULL and that they are presented following the international trends in the validation of doctoral theses, depending on each area.
• Specifically, Action 46 addresses the peculiarities of the Humanities Branch by recognizing that the peculiarity of one-person or small-sized teams in the areas of knowledge of our disciplines deserves to be recognized through concrete measures that address their specific requirements. We are convinced that precisely thanks to the possibility of joining together to integrate larger multidisciplinary teams, this trend will increase in the coming years.

Please see the following tables

Administrative Management: ULL Doctoral and Postgraduate School

The programme will be integrated into the Doctoral School, whose creation was approved by the Governing Council of the ULL on 26 September 2013. Until it comes into operation, the programme will be academically attached to the Faculty of Philology and its administrative management will be the responsibility of the Postgraduate Commission.

The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Program in Arts and Humanities at the University of La Laguna will be responsible for guiding students regarding the line of research to which their Doctoral Thesis project should be assigned and will propose, where appropriate, the necessary curricular adaptations.

Full-time and part-time students

In accordance with the provisions of the regulations on continuing education, it is expected that part-time students may represent up to 40% of enrolled students.

Full-time students: 24

Part-time students: up to 16