Students' representatives

In this page you will find a short summary of the tasks of the Governing bodies of SISSA and some information about the Students' Representatives and Postdocs' Representatives.

The complete set of information and all the contact data can be found at SISSA Students' website, directly managed by the Students' representatives.

Feel free to contact them for questions, needs, information about your PhD program, etc. at <email>studentreps@sissa.it</email>

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Elections

Every student can stand as a candidate to be a representative on the Area Council, the Board of Directors and the Senate of the School. In order for the elections to be valid at least 30% of eligible voters must cast a vote. In order to be elected, a candidate must have received at least 15% of the votes. If someone resigns or completes his/her PhD program a by-election can be held. Students are informed by an email sent from the Students' Secretariat about the dates and procedures for elections. For further information about the specific tasks of the Governing Bodies of the School and elections, you can find the official documents here.

Board of Directors

The Consiglio d'Amministrazione (Board of Directors) is the governing body of the school which oversees financial matters. Specifically it approves and controls the budget of the school, making decisions on contracts, number of fellowships, missions, agreements for collaborating with other institutions, etc.

Its members are the Director, four representatives elected by the faculty, a representative for the administrative staff, two representatives elected by PhD students and two external members.

In general, all the decisions made by the Senate pass through the Board of Directors in order to check and keep track of the commitment of expenses and income. As students' representatives, we care above all that at the heart of the School our needs and expectations are met, making SISSA a pleasant place to work and an invaluable school of research and science.

Senate of the School

The Senate of the School coordinates the didactic and scientific activities of the School. Its members are the Director, the coordinators of the Areas, a number of professors from each Area, two elected Student Representatives, and a representative for the research personnel. The Senate designates the coordinators of the PhD Courses and determines the number of student fellowships and their distribution among the Areas of research.

Evaluation Unit

The 'Nucleo di Valutazione' (Evaluation Unit) is the School's main evaluation organism; its duty is to oversee the quality and effectiveness of research and didactic activities, to certify the adequacy of the School teachers, and to analyse the results of the yearly Students' Questionnaire. It is an independent branch aimed at performance evaluation, as established by Italian 'Legge 150/2009'. Five members make up the committee: one Professor appointed by the School Director, one Student elected by all the PhD Students of the School, and three external members appointed by the Director and approved by the School Senate and Board of Directors. Each member works in the committee for two years and his/her position can be renewed only once. The Students' Representative elected inside this organism also sits on the School Council. Yuo can find its composition here

Students' Council

The Students' Council is an advisory body for decisions regarding Student activities in the School, in particular didactics. It is composed of the Students' representatives on the School Council, in the Areas, on the Senate, on the Board of Directors and on the Evaluation Committee. Every year the President of the Students' Council presents a report to the School Council about didactics and the life of the students.

The complete information about the Students' Council (with its composition, meeting calendar and minutes) can be found at the dedicated page of SISSA Students' website.

Area Council

Each Area has an Area Council which discusses and makes decisions about issues concerning the Area. These issues include teaching activities, joint supervision of PhDs with other Universities, suspension of fellowships and such. The Area Council is composed of the professors of the Area, a representative from the research personnel, a representative from the technical-administrative staff, and a number of elected students representatives; this number is the greater of the number of PhD courses and 18% of the total Council members. Each PhD course elects its own representative; any additional representatives are elected by all students of the Area. The representative from the research personnel is also elected. The students' representatives to the Area Council act as a first reference for PhD students in case of any problem or question related to their PhD course and the Area.

Each Area Council may choose to have an Area Board, which is composed of members from the Area Council. The Area Board manages administration issues, such as the decision of the number of fellowships to be activated for each PhD course of the Area, the nomination of the doctoral committee for PhD thesis discussions and so on.

Safety at workplace committee

The committee for the safety at workplace is part of SISSA Health and Safety management, as prescribed by the Italian laws.

All the (very important!) relevant information is available at the dedicated webpage.