Confidentiality

For situations where, due to the nature of the work or because it the was developed in collaboration with private companies, it is necessary to ensure confidentiality to the produced documentation, the following procedure must be guaranteed:

• The title, abstract and keywords (both in Portuguese and any other EU official language) cannot be confidential;
• The PhD thesis both in the “Documento Provisório” (Provisional Document) and the “Documento Definitivo” (Definitive Document) versions, has to be constituted by two documents:

o “Documento Público” (Public Document);

o “Anexo Confidencial” (Confidential Attachment).

• The “Documento Público”:

o Lacks any confidential information, although the removed sections are clearly identified as such and quantified (in number of characters, words);

o Must allow the understanding of the scientific validity of the thesis, while preventing the replication of the invention or the confidential material;

o Must consist in a coherent text, justifying in a public form the approval in the “Tese” (i.e. Thesis) curricular course;

o Can contain encoded information, which can be interpreted based on information provided in the “Anexo Confidencial”;

• The “Anexo Confidencial”:

o Is a digital document, provided in a non-editable format, which contains confidential information;

o Will not be made public in any circumstance and will not be delivered to any public theses’ repository;

o The members of the jury must accept and sign a confidentiality agreement to access the “Anexo Confidencial”;

• The cover of the public document must include the caption “Documento Público” and the cover for the confidential document “Anexo Confidencial”;
• Copies of both documents have to be delivered to the “Direção Académica” (the Academic Board);
• The public document must be revised and authorized by the entity that requires the confidentiality and the data and/or results considered confidential must be placed in an attachment (as a separate volume), which will be distributed to the members of the jury.