Structured PhD Programs Swiss TPH PhD candidates are highly encouraged to enrol in structured PhD programs within the first 4-6 months of the PhD. Structured PhD programs support PhD candidates during their studies and with finishing their PhD. PhD candidates registered in structured PhD programs must fulfil additional requirements (such as at least 18 instead of 12 ECTS of course work). This comes with a range of extra benefits though, such as: • Participation at special courses and events with small or no fees, • Access to funding of courses or conferences, • Career training, and • Networking among a critical mass of PhD candidates. Please discuss this option early on (i.e. at the very beginning of your PhD period) with your supervisor. Admission rules and procedures may differ across programs, thus, check out the websites and approach the programme coordinators. Typically, registered students who fulfil all requirements will get a programme certificate once they have received the PhD title from the University. These certificates are not a “PhD degree” but confirm the range of additional achievements. NOTE: If you do not accumulate the required ECTS until the defence, you may be charged the course fees in retrospect. The world of PhD programs is changing: we are currently in the process of combining a few PhD programmes into one school, the graduate school health sciences (GSHS). The GSHS planning group is led by an inter-faculty team chaired by Nino Künzli and coordinated by Anja Matthiä. All Swiss TPH PhD candidates will have to get enrolled in the GSHS together with students of the former structured PhD programs, namely the University of Basel Medical Faculty PhD Program in Health Sciences (PPHS, see below) and the University of Basel Science Faculty international PhD program Infection Biology (IPPIB, see below). The large SSPH+ PhD program in Public Health doesn’t accept new students anymore, those already enrolled continue to benefit from the program though. Furthermore, all Swiss TPH PhD candidates are welcomed to the SSPH+ Inter-University Graduate Campus – the hub of inter-university high quality SSPH+ PhD courses, trainings, and events (see below). All these changes are due to fundamental changes in the funding mechanisms of all PhD programmes. These should though not affect PhD students already enrolled in any programme. Given the many PhD candidates of Swiss TPH still enrolled in those programmes, we keep some basic information of all here below. Feel free to approach Nino Künzli at anytime in case of uncertainties.
42 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
