2019-2020
Swiss TPH Student Handbook Department of Education and Training Last update: 23/04/2020 (UPDATES - HIGHLIGHTED IN YELLOW - ARE IN PDF VERSION ONLY)
Foreword The Department of Education and Training (ET) at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) is pleased to provide you the 2019 / 2020 version of the Swiss TPH Student Handbook. It is intended to help you navigate your way through programme requirements, the regulations of the University of Basel, Swiss TPH or the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+). Selected key information about living in Basel is provided too. Whether you are new to Swiss TPH or continuing your graduate studies here, a visiting student from abroad or a native Basel citizen, we trust that the Student Handbook will be of assistance and use to you. The Handbook contains all relevant information related to studying at Swiss TPH. It includes important and also NEW notes about rules and regulations for the Master and PhD students. It is crucial that students always use the newest manual rather than referring to previous versions as information, rules and regulations are regularly updated and often changed by the involved partners. Please take in particular note of the upcoming changes in the PhD programs where the future is not just a copy of the past. We highly recommend students to share and discuss this also with the supervisors who are similarly challenged by changes. Just like the 2018 Student Handbook edition, it does not include detailed information about all courses anymore. Those are accessible online (Course directory of the University Basel). However, the Swiss TPH Student Handbook will still be printed once a year (in fall) for incoming / new students and regularly updated in the online version (at least in February). For the most up-to-date version of the document, visit our website www.swisstph.ch/en/study-with-us/bachelor-and-master/. If you have any suggestions to further improve the Student Handbook, please let us know and we will consider your comments for future editions. Comments or suggestions can be sent to Nicole Peter at ET: nicole.peter@swisstph.ch. Enjoy this resource and your studies!
Nino KĂźnzli Deputy Director Swiss TPH Head, Department of Education and Training (ET) Dean, Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+)
Introduction
Welcome to Swiss TPH Dear students and colleagues Welcome to the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), by far the largest of the five associated institutes of the University of Basel, the oldest university of Switzerland. The mandate of Swiss TPH is to contribute to the improvement of the health of populations nationally and internationally through excellence in research, teaching and training, and services. One of our four strategic goals is learning and capacity building, that is, we share knowledge with students, health professionals, relevant institutions, beneficiaries and other stakeholders. Hence, the entire teaching cadre at Swiss TPH – coordinated by the Department of Education and Training (ET) – is strongly committed to education and training, so that a next generation of cutting-edge scientists, public health experts and specialists in the fields of epidemiology, infection biology, public health and global health are being nurtured. Get engaged and we will promise that you will learn a great deal – and so will we. We will jointly foster capacities in the public, international and global health sciences – welcome aboard! While studying at Swiss TPH, you are a full member of the Institute and we count on you from the very first moment you enter our doors. Thus, we strongly encourage you to interact with our staff and other fellow-students during the course work and, whenever opportunities arise, outside official lectures and seminars in an informal manner. Communicate, debate and exchange with all our people as this will maximise benefits from the diverse backgrounds and cultures united under one roof here at Swiss TPH. As you shall witness, our teaching faculty is eager to share their experiences and expertise with younger colleagues and peers, and invites open communication and constructive debate with students whenever possible. You have chosen to pursue your studies at a vibrant and well-respected institut; your own contributions will amplify one of our key slogans – mutual learning for change! On behalf of the whole Directorate, the teaching faculty and staff at Swiss TPH, I wish you an intellectually stimulating and productive time at Swiss TPH and the University of Basel. Congratulations for having chosen Swiss TPH to pursue your studies and deepest thanks for your commitment to further our mission; to improve health of populations all over the world.
Jürg Utzinger Director Swiss TPH
Introduction
Important Contacts Emergency numbers
In case of an emergency or accident, the following phone numbers should be called: Police: Fire Brigade: Medical Emergency:
117 118 144
Swiss TPH extensions
From outside Swiss TPH, dial +41 (0)61 284 and then the extensions given below: Main Office: Student Administration: Library: IT: Medical Services: Travel Clinic: Security Officer: Human Resources:
x8111 x8289 x8223 x8333 x8255 x8255 x8252 x8246
Swiss TPH Socinstrasse 57 4051 Basel Switzerland Tel.: +41 (0)61 284 81 11 Fax: +41 (0)61 284 81 01 www.swisstph.ch
Head, Department of Education and Training (ET) Nino KĂźnzli, +41 (0)61 284 83 99, nino.kuenzli@swisstph.ch
Research Commission Coordinator Marco Waser, +41 (0)61 284 83 06, marco.waser@swisstph.ch, research.commission@swisstph.ch
PhD Student Office Christine Mensch, +41 (0)61 284 82 89, christine.mensch@swisstph.ch
Bachelor and Master Student Office Pascal Gschwind, +41 (0)61 284 83 60, pascal.gschwind@swisstph.ch
PPHS and Graduate School Health Sciences Coordinator Anja Matthiä, +41 (0)61 284 88 17, anja.matthiae@swisstph.ch
Coordination Student Handbook and contact for all feedback Nicole Peter, +41 (0)61 284 83 59, nicole.peter@swisstph.ch
Introduction
TABLE OF CONTENTS The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute
8
Departments 9 Organigram 2020 10 Location and Map 11 Facilities at Swiss TPH 11
Travel Safety
20
The Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+)
22
Switzerland and Basel
23
Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology Introduction for MSc Students
27 28
General Information and Procedures Checklist for MSc Students
29 35
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
37
International Students
58
Switzerland Basel
Overview of general guidelines for Swiss TPH PhD studies Administrativ Checklist for New PhD Students Structured PhD Programmes Relevant steps taken during the PhD studies at Swiss TPH Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Swiss TPH Other opportunities
Master Students PhD Students General Information
Table of contents
23 24
37 40 41 45 56 57
58 59 59
Students’ Rights and Obligations
61
Student Representative’s Roles and Responsibilities
64
Overview of Courses offered by Swiss TPH
70
Appendixes 75 1 Resources for MSc Students 1A Data Sheet Master Student Profile 75 1B Writing a MsC thesis protocol 76 1C MSc Thesis Structure 78
2A PhD Student Resources 80 2B Guidelines for writing a PhD proposal 83 2C Competences in Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology (MPI) 85 2D Competences in Epidemiology and Public Health 86 2E Guidelines for the internal PhD proposal evaluation process 87 2F Proposed Structure of PhD Project Presentation at the Research Commission Meeting 88 2G Evaluation report for PhD proposals 89 2H Student’s Self-Assessment Form 91 2I Documentation of formal training, attended conferences, presentations given or paper published 92 2J Annual meeting confirmation Form 93 2K PhD thesis structure 94 2L Data sheet PhD student profile 95 3 General Resources for MSc and PhD Students 3A Ethical Clearance for Swiss TPH Projects 3B Plagiarism 3C Corporate Identity at Swiss TPH 3D List of Accomodation 3E Map of Basel
97 97 100 101 102 103
Table of contents
The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), formerly known as the Swiss Tropical Institute (STI), was founded as a public organisation in 1943. In 2010, the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) of the University of Basel Medical Faculty was integrated with the former STI, creating Swiss TPH as we know it today. Financial support comes from the Swiss Federal Government (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation), the Cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft and the University of Basel (ca. 20%), while competitively acquired project funds and service department earnings (Swiss Centre for International Health, Department of Medicine) make up the rest (80%). The Department of Education and Training (ET) of Swiss TPH coordinates the extensive teaching commitments of Swiss TPH, involving dedicated teachers from all Swiss TPH Departments. As an associate institute of the University of Basel, Swiss TPH offers a range of teaching activities in various faculties of the University. In the Faculty of Science we lead a wide variety of courses for the Bachelor degree in Infection Biology and Epidemiology (IBE), the Master of Infection Biology and the Master of Epidemiology. In the Medical Faculty, Swiss TPH is responsible for the Bachelor and Master level teaching in public health throughout the medical curriculum. Other teaching activities are based in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Swiss TPH is also engaged in a range of post-graduate programmes and courses and the largest partner of the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) - a foundation of eight Swiss universities which constitute the inter-university faculty of public health sciences. The Swiss TPH mandate is to contribute to the improvement of the health of populations internationally, nationally and locally through excellence in research, services, and teaching and training. We fulfill our mandate and further develop our institutional profile by the pursuit of four strategic goals: • Strengthen our excellent standing in generating new knowledge on disease and health systems • Establish and apply interventions for health policy, strategies, clinical medicine and public health at local, national and global levels • Share knowledge with students, health professionals, relevant institutions, beneficiaries and other stakeholders • Promote and strengthen responsible interactions and exchange with individuals and communities in their social, cultural and ecological contexts. People and their well-being are the foundation and centre for our thinking and action
8 – General information
Departments Since January 1, 2017, Swiss TPH consists of the following five departments:
Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) EPH explores new approaches in epidemiology; assesses interventions for disease control; investigates the environmental, social, economic and bio-genetic causes of health and disease and studies determinants of health seeking behaviour and health system organisation and planning in Africa, Asia and Europe.
Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology (MPI) MPI studies host-parasite relationships, determinants of infection and morbidity at the molecular, cellular, clinical and population levels and develops tools for diagnosis, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
Swiss Centre for International Health (SCIH) SCIH assists in health project implementation; acts as executing and support agency for health development; and offers short- and long-term consultancies and expertise in all aspects of health services management, planning, risk analysis and evaluation.
Medicine (MED) MED builds on a foundation of clinical medical services, diagnostics, pharmaceutical medicine and clinical research. It includes medical services, advice for travellers to tropical and subtropical countries, vaccination services and 24-hour emergency services, a reference diagnostic laboratory specialised for tropical infectious diseases, and a clinical research unit, as well as offers for professional support for clinical trials, services and training on regulatory topics and quality assurance of internally conducted trials.
Education and Training (ET) ET is the Swiss TPH hub for all teaching and student affairs (including PhD students). It coordinates teaching and training activities on all levels within Swiss TPH, University of Basel and external partners. Scientists from all Swiss TPH departments contribute to the wide range of educational and teaching activities of the Swiss TPH. For further information (projects and staff) see: www.swisstph.ch
General information – 9
Organigram 2020
Organigram 2020 Board of Governors Members from the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, Swiss universities and the private sector Chairman Andreas Burckhardt
Administration
Directorate
Administration Matthias Schmid-Huberty Deputy: Mathias Kronig Finances / Controlling Mathias Kronig
Director Jürg Utzinger
Communications Sabina Beatrice-Matter
Deputy Director and Department Head Nino Künzli
Human Resources Iris Haueter
Department Heads Sébastien Gagneux, Daniel Paris, Nicole Probst-Hensch, Kaspar Wyss
Informatics Alain Bertolotti
Administrative Director Matthias Schmid-Huberty
Security, Safety & Health Marco Tamborrini Alexander Knup
Infrastructure Ursina Müller Project & Grant Service Michael Käser
Departments
Epidemiology and Public Health
Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology
Swiss Centre for International Health
Medicine
Education and Training
Nicole Probst-Hensch Deputy: Jakob Zinsstag
Sébastien Gagneux Deputy: Till Voss
Kaspar Wyss
Daniel Paris Deputy: Christian Burri
Nino Künzli Deputy: Axel Hoffmann
Biostatistics Penelope Vounatsou
Clinical Immunology Claudia Daubenberger
Health Systems Support Helen Prytherch
Clinical Operations Elisabeth Reus
Chronic Disease Epidemiology Nicole Probst-Hensch
Helminth Drug Development Jennifer Keiser
Health Technology and Telemedicine Martin Raab
Clinical Research Klaus Reither
Bachelor-MasterDoctorate Nino Künzli
Ecosystem Health Sciences Guéladio Cissé
Malaria Gene Regulation Till Voss
Systems Performance and Monitoring Odile Pham-Tan
Environmental Exposures and Health Martin Röösli Health Interventions Christian Lengeler Household Economics and Health Systems Research Günther Fink
Malaria Host Interactions Nicolas Brancucci Molecular Immunology Gerd Pluschke
Diagnostics Sven Poppert
Library and Documentation Giovanni Casagrande
Medical Services Andreas Neumayr
Professional Postgraduate Training Bernadette Peterhans
Medicines Implementation Research Christian Burri
Teaching Technology and Didactics Axel Hoffmann
Parasite Chemotherapy Pascal Mäser Tuberculosis Research Sébastien Gagneux
Human and Animal Health Jakob Zinsstag Infectious Disease Modelling Thomas Smith Society, Gender and
Health Sonja Merten
Organigram valid Jan. 2020
10 – General information
The Institute Location and Map Swiss TPH is located at Socinstrasse (near Tram nos. 1 and 6, and bus no. 50 stop “Brausebad”), and is housed in several buildings (No. 55, 55a, 57, 59). No. 57 is the main building and home to the travel clinic, outpatient department and administration. No. 59 features offices, lecture and seminar rooms, the library and laboratory facilities. Newly built laboratory facilities and course administration centres are located at No. 55a. The former elderly house (Socin 55) is now also a Swiss TPH facility with a large teaching and meeting room under the roof. Other Swiss TPH buildings are found at Eulerstrasse No. 54, 77 and 83. In 2021 it is planned that the Swiss TPH will move into a new building in Allschwil.
Facilities at Swiss TPH Staff and door badge To get around Swiss TPH, students need to have a staff badge. The staff badge serves as an electronic door key and gives students access to the library and the teaching rooms. The badge can also be loaded with money and used for payment in the cafeteria (the machine to load the badge can be found on the main floor in Socinstrasse 57, in front of the elevator). Paying with the badge at the cafeteria gives you a 30% discount off the original price. Please make sure you have enough money on the badge prior to visiting the cafeteria. The badge can be obtained at the main secretariat. A deposit of CHF 100 is required and will be fully refunded upon return of the badge. Please bring the badge back to the main secretariat if you leave Switzerland for a longer stay abroad. Further, always carry an identity card or passport with you. Library The Swiss TPH library www.swisstph.ch/library subscribes to many journals in the fields of epidemiology, tropical medicine, parasitology and multidisciplinary sciences. Back issues can be consulted in the library and books covering the core areas of Swiss TPH research are available for consultation and loan. The library can also order copies of most journal articles that are not available in print in any public library in Basel. Documents available at the University Library, the Medical Library or other University institute libraries must be obtained directly. To use library services (loan, book order, etc.), you must be registered and in possession of a member card, valid in all University of Basel public libraries and other affiliated institutions. Contact: library@swisstph.ch Library hours: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 8:30-12:00 and 13:30-17:00 Wednesday and Friday 8:30-12:00 An extensive electronic library is available via the university network: https://ub.unibas.ch/en/databases-e-journals-ebooks/
General information – 11
University Medical Library When you start on your master’s or doctoral thesis, you will have to familiarize yourself with techniques of literature research. The University Medical Library offers help with systematic literature searching in bibliographic databases. A one-hour mentoring session including preparation and follow-up by the library staff is provided free of charge for Swiss TPH students https://ub.unibas.ch/en/university-medical-library/support-for-literature-searching/. Students who endeavor to do a systematic review are especially advised to make use of this offer https://ub.unibas.ch/en/university-medical-library/systematic-reviews-and-mediated-searches/. Printing and copying All Swiss TPH printers, scanners and copy machines are connected to the central network and are operated with the personal badge. Both black and white and colour machines are available and costs are charged directly to the student’s account(s), set up by the supervisor. Library and IT staff can provide guidance and help if technical problems arise. Publication discounts You can find a list of publication discounts on the website of the University Library: https://ub.unibas.ch/de/open-science-publizieren-digitale-forschung/open-access/#c7803 Computers and e-mail All MSc and PhD students who write, generate or use Swiss TPH data to write their thesis at the Institute are entitled to a computer provided and owned by Swiss TPH. With these devices, access to the wired network and the wireless network "swiss-tph" is possible. It is not allowed to use private computers for Swiss TPH related work / data. WLAN access is available in all conference rooms, the library and the auditorium. A limited number of public computers are available in the library and can be accessed via a personal account or by a temporary account provided by the library staff. All public computers are connected to the Internet. For all networks, the Terms of Use of the Swiss TPH and the University of Basel apply and must be strictly adhered to. Private computers are, apart from the exception described above, not allowed in the networks of the Institute. For MSc and PhD students, University e-mail accounts are provided by the University as part of the official matriculation process. In addition, Swiss TPH staff receive the @swisstph.ch email (usually with the same name as the unibas.ch email). You need the Swiss TPH email for all institutional matters; the unibas.ch email is thus, automatically forwarded to the swisstph.ch account. Swiss TPH uses Lotus Notes software for e-mail. Remote access to e-mail accounts is available via www.webmail.swisstph.ch. VPN client software for remote access to the University of Basel and Swiss TPH network can be obtained from the University website www.mobile.unibas.ch Please note that e-mail remains the primary official mode of e-communication at Swiss TPH, thus, you are required to read your swisstph.ch e-mail account and to promptly respond from this account where needed. You will also get your semester registration reminders sent by the administration office of University Basel via e-mail. Being registered at Unibas is absolutely essential for the whole period of Master / PhD study. Related Informatics Guidelines: www.intranet.swisstph.ch/en/regulations. Under “Filter list” select “Informatics”. 12 – General information
Project Communication A fancy website does not guarantee efficient project communication. For collaboration in research projects in particular, the relevance of project communication should not be underestimated. The interplay between internal and external communications needs to be established from the outset. Effective and innovative project / research communications is a vital element in ensuring that research makes an impact. Questions like the examples below need to be considered and discussed with the project team: • Which information needs to be shared – to whom and by whom? • How can the appropriate tools be chosen and used efficiently? • What is my responsibility as a student in terms of project communication? For information and content support concerning the various Swiss TPH platforms for project communication, please contact the Swiss TPH communications unit: • General questions: sabina.beatrice@swisstph.ch • Website (www.swisstph.ch): valerie.busson@swisstph.ch • Swiss TPH intranet (www.intranet.swisstph.ch/en): fabienne.lenardic@swisstph.ch • Social Media (Facebook: Swiss Tropical and Public Health institute; Instagram: @Swiss_tph; Twitter: @SwissTPH, LInkedin: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute): danielle.powell@swisstph.ch • Corporate Identity & Design: joanne.blackwell@swisstph.ch • All other requests: communications@swisstph.ch IT Service Desk Compliance With the use of intranet, internet and e-mail of the Swiss TPH, the user confirms to acknowledge and comply to the Swiss TPH and UniBas Terms of Use (DE). Alfresco project collaboration platform For security reasons, the use of cloud storage devices, such as Dropbox, Sky-Drive, Ubuntu-One or iCloud is not permitted for the storage or exchange of data from the Swiss TPH. At Swiss TPH it is strongly recommended to use Alfresco for projects as a central data storage, collaboration platform and communication tool. The internal hosting as well as regular backups ensure the security of Alfresco. In addition to just sharing files, Alfresco supports different processes for working collaboratively on documents and includes different features for enhancing collaboration among the project partners both within and outside the Swiss TPH. All processes related to the Research Commission are managed with Alfresco. All PhD students will receive access permission, as soon as they start working for Swiss TPH (www.team.swisstph.ch/page/site/research-commission/documentlibrary). Alfresco support is provided by the Swiss TPH IT unit: it-service@swisstph.ch
General information – 13
How to get support The IT Service Desk team provides support in all different areas related to the standard IT workstation – within the realms of their possibilities. Additionally, they help with the procurement of IT resources for our projects in Switzerland and abroad. To get support, follow ONE of the following steps, depending on your possibilities (VPN / Intranet Access) and the issues urgency. Service Portal As standard procedure, kindly create an Incident Request in the IT ServicePortal www.itserviceportal.swisstph.ch. To do so, click on the Button “Create New Incidents” on the portals homepage.
After you fill in the required prompts, the system creates a ticket and displays the Incident Request Number. Your ticket will be forwarded automatically to our support team. Kindly note that you need to create one ticket per request!
14 – General information
Write: If you don’t have access to the Serviceportal, send an email to it-service@swisstph.ch. Your email will be automatically forwarded to the IT Serviceportal and a ticket will be created. The IT Support Team will receive your Incident Request and will get in touch with you. Call: In urgent cases or if the options above are not available, you can call the IT emergency phone, 333 (within Swiss TPH) or +41 61 284 83 33 (from outside Swiss TPH), on working days from 8:30-12:30 and 13:30-17:00. Definition of urgent cases: • Reaction time shorter than one working day (deadline within 48 hours, event, travel...) • Important service not available and no workaround possible (e.g., printing does not work at all) Visit: Please visit the IT office only after making an appointment and take the Incident Request (IRxxxx) ticket number and the name of the IT supporter (with whom you have an appointment) with you. For further Information about Swiss TPH IT Support: https://intranet.swisstph.ch/en/aoc/informatics/it-service-support/ For students, there are special internal and external requirements and support offers, addressed in the IT introduction given at the beginning of each study.
Please include answers to the questions below in every message to IT • Who – who is contacting and for whom are you contacting? Do you have an IT issue or does your colleague have one? • What – what is the incident / request exactly? • When 1 – when did the incident occur for the first time? Did you have this problem some time earlier already – if yes, how often? • When 2 – when do you need support? Is there a deadline approaching? For instance do you need to submit an abstract this week and your software is crashed? • Where – where did the incident happen? What were you working on when it happened? For instance, were you writing an email or working on an Excel sheet? • Why / How – do you know why / how it happened? Perhaps you know about an accident? Ordering software, hardware, access On the IT Serviceportal, the Swiss TPH Informatics offers different standard hardware and software, which you can order through the secretary of the department you are affiliated with. Please note that only software approved and licensed by Swiss TPH may be used on your rental laptop. It is not permitted to install any third party software by yourself. If you need any software that is not in the catalogue, please contact your department’s secretary. Kindly clarify the needs and the budget with your supervisor in advance for avoiding delays and incorrect orders.
General information – 15
1. Login in the IT Serviceportal and check under orderable items what you need. 2. If the software is listed under the category Self-Service then follow the steps, described below. As soon as your device is accessing the Swiss TPH network (also via VPN), the installation starts automatically. For all other Software / Hardware / Access needs, follow step 3. 3. Send an E-Mail to your Department secretariat with the follow information: Hardware: Type, Model, quantity, Recipient, Cost Centre, Preferred Delivery Date (at least 10 working days from approval), Delivery Location Software: Product Number, SW Name, Recipient, Cost Centre, Inventory Number from the Laptop / Desktop 4. Your Department Secretariat will place the order at the IT Serviceportal. Afterwards, your order has to be approved by the referring cost center owner in the Serviceportal directly. The time the approval takes depends on the reaction time of the cost centre owner and can’t be influenced by the IT. 5. After being approved by the cost centre owner, the hardware or software will be ready for delivery after ten days at the latest. For hardware orders you will be informed from the IT when the order is ready for delivery. Software will be automatically installed on your laptop / PC. As soon as your device is accessing the Swiss TPH network (also via VPN), the installation starts automatically, it can take from 30 minutes up to 3 hours, depending on the software. Available in Software Center If you want to install software that is available in the Software Center, kindly follow these steps: 1. Start the Software Center application 2. Click on the “Available Software” tab 3. Search for the required software using the search bar 4. Select the required software package 5. Click on the “Install” button to start the installation procedure.
16 – General information
Depending on the selected software package, your PC will need to reboot once or multiple times during the installation. Once the installation procedure is completed, you will see a notification in you taskbar, and the new software will be available in the start menu. Telephone and fax International phone calls using the traditional infrastructure can be expensive; national as well as international calls from mobile phones are always very expensive. Whenever possible, e-mail and Internet-based phone services such as Skype should be used instead. The phones in student offices can be used for work-related national calls. For international work-related calls, the line has to be activated (call the central secretariat 111 to ask for an international line). Office phones should not be used for private calls. A central fax machine is available in the EPH department, and should only be used for work-related transmissions. The number is +41 (0)61 284 81 05. Post Staff members have a letter-tray in the corridor of their respective floor, which should be checked regularly. At the same location, there are trays for internal Swiss TPH mail and for outgoing external mail. Internal mail is sent in special envelopes; while official Swiss TPH envelopes should be used for external project-related mail (both are obtainable from Eliane Kobel, Zsuzsanna Györffy, Sabine Zbären and Nora Bauer). Swiss TPH pays for the cost of postage for work-related correspondence. Personal post can also be deposited in the tray for external posting, but stamps have to be bought privately. Stamps for personal post are available from the main secretariat. Indicate priority mail by using the “Priority” label or by writing “A-Post” in the upper-right corner of the envelope. The Institute’s address should not be used for receiving personal bills (utility, etc).
General information – 17
The Institute’s postal address is: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute <Your Name> Socinstrasse 57 P.O. Box 4002 Basel Switzerland Cafeteria The cafeteria is located in the Eulerhof. Coffee, tea, soft drinks and various snacks are available during opening hours. Additionally, three different menus are offered every day during lunchtime. You can pay directly with your staff badge and receive a 30% discount or pay with cash (no discount). Please make sure that you have enough money loaded on your badge prior to visiting the cafeteria (the machine to load your badge is on the ground floor in Socinstrasse 57, in front of the elevator). There are several take-away shops on Allschwilerstrasse, close to Swiss TPH, as well as Migros, Coop and Aldi supermarkets. Two affordable restaurants are also in close proximity to Swiss TPH. In both places you can receive a discount if you show your student card: • Uni-Mensa, Bernoullistrasse 16, Basel • Cantina e9, Eulerstrasse 9, Basel At Restaurant Marmaris, Spalenring 118, Basel, a discount is also given if you present your Swiss TPH badge. At lunch, the MARKTHALLE close to Bahnhof SBB offers a very broad international variety of food vendors, at reasonable prices, in a nice urban atmosphere. Football at Swiss TPH The Swiss TPH offers its employees and students the opportunity to play football in a casual manner once a week. Men and women are most welcome independent of their talents and skills. In winter (OctMar) it takes place indoors at Hermann Kinkelin-Strasse 6, 4051 Basel on Monday from 18:15 to 20:00 and in summer (Apr-Sep) outdoors at Sankt Galler-Ring 80, 4055 Basel on Tuesday from 18:15 to 20:00. Appropriate shoes are recommended. Feel free to join or contact Anja (anja.schreier@swisstph.ch) should you have any questions or need additional information. Yoga Swiss TPH is offering lunch yoga classes to all the employees and students. Vinyasa yoga and fun is taking place every Thursday at lunch-time (12:15 to 13:15). You are most welcome - independent of our talents and skills - to join Sonia Borrell (Scientist Swiss TPH and certified yoga teacher) at Turnhalle Mission 21. Feel free to join or contact Sonia Borrell (sonia.borrell@swisstph.ch). Parking A partly covered space outside the Institute is available for parking bicycles. There is no car parking available for students.
18 – General information
Smoking Smoking is not allowed inside any Swiss TPH building – and is generally discouraged for public health reasons. If you want to smoke, leave the building or use the designated places outside for smoking. It is not allowed to smoke in front of the windows nor in front of the main entrances. Environment Swiss TPH cares about the environment and the sustainable development goals locally as well. Indeed, Basel played a leading role in the “green movement” of Switzerland. This included the development of the environmental health research agendas, now all clustered at Swiss TPH. Please support all efforts to save energy in summer and winter, separate waste that cannot be prevented to support recycling, use public transport and limit your business trips to the minimum essentials as air traveling is by far the largest contributor to the climate relevant foot print. In your research teams, you may encourage the use of online conferencing to limit travel or promote piggy-bagging project workshops to conferences where most would go anyway. Favour seasonal and regional food for PhD defences and other work-related social events. Basel has high quality tap water – no need to invest in bottled water. Moreover, in the buildings of Swiss TPH there are several cold drink water machines (dispensers) which can be used. Many student groups engage in environmental movements and activities (e.g., www.urbanagriculturebasel.ch). Meetups A group of greatest interest, and in which many PhD students are registered is the "Computational Methods for Research Community": www.meetup.com/Basel-Computational-Methods-for-Research-Community-BCMRC. On meetup.com you can find lots of various socializing groups. www.meetup.com/cities/ch/basel
General information – 19
Travel Safety Swiss TPH staff extensively travels to various countries, including fragile regions and conflict areas. Swiss TPH takes safety and security of its staff very seriously and has developed processes and tools which all staff must respect and use for a shared understanding of safety and security management. Students who will travel abroad as part of their research project must adhere to the Swiss TPH travel safety and security regulations which can be found on the Swiss TPH intranet (www.intranet.swisstph.ch/en/aoc/health-safety-and-security/swiss-tph-travel-safety-security-concept). Should you for any reason not have access to the Swiss TPH intranet please request the material provided there through alexander.knup@swisstph.ch.
Swiss TPH key principles in safety and security • Principle of precaution: Take a preventive and proactive approach. Identify the risks and develop a plan to mitigate them. • Primacy of life and personal well-being: safety and security always comes first. Your valuables are not worth your life or those of your colleagues. Likewise, pressure of work must never override safety and security. • The right to withdraw: you have the right to decline if you think the risks are too high.
General travel requirements 1. Make yourself familiar with the Swiss TPH values and regulations by reading the Manual for Employees and the Code of Conduct. 2. Prior to leave for your first business trip abroad (out of Switzerland), you must complete the online security awareness training BSAFE : www.training.dss.un.org/ (send the certificates to hr@ swisstph.ch). Without this you are not eligible for business trips nor any reimbursements of any related travel costs. 3. Attend the Swiss TPH travel clinic for a pre-departure health check. A first medical check is paid by Swiss TPH. 4. Your private home emergency contact details need to be available and kept updated in your dossier at Swiss TPH Human Resources (hr@swisstph.ch) 5. Register yourself on GardaWorld Travel Security website for travel insurance (www.travelsecurity.garda.com/home) 6. Attend the two-day course on Swiss TPH safety & security risk management.
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Before each trip 1. Fil in the Travel Safety Form (take a copy with you and send one to your HQ and local contact) 2. Register your trip on GardaWorld Travel Security (mandatory for travel insurance cover). 3. Set up a communication protocol according to the security needs of the country. 4. Acquaint yourself with the local context and recent developments. Get help from your supervisors, they are responsible to ensure safety and practical arrangements. 5. Inform your embassy of your presence in the destination country (e.g., Itineris registration).
Accommodation Carefully plan your accommodations with your supervisor for stays abroad in case your research requires it (e.g. field work). Accommodation is often offered by the host institution abroad; else book safe and trust-worthy hotels (avoid using “couch-serve”, Airbnb and similar offers).
In case of an incident or an emergency, act as follows: 1. Look for local aid and inform your local contact and line manager (the numbers are those you filled-in on your Travel Safety Form). 2. If local help is not an option, call your line manager, HQ contact person or the Swiss TPH 24 / 7 Hotline. The hotline will offer you guidance and may trigger the emergency cascade if needed.
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The Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) Initiated in 2005, with funds from the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) became a foundation in 2008 and is currently supported by twelve Swiss universities (Universities of Basel, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Lausanne, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Svizzera Italiana and Zurich and Universities of Applied Sciences Bern (BFH), ZHAW in Winterthur and SUPSI in Southern Switzerland). The visionary model of SSPH+ is based on the view that in a small country like Switzerland, no single institution has the critical mass to cover all public health relevant areas. As of 2019, a total of ~20 institutions affiliated with the ten founding universities build the core of SSPH+. As a foundation, SSPH+ does not have a “faculty”. However, counting all public health oriented faculty members at the partner universities, the SSPH+ “faculty” consists of more than 200 SSPH+ Fellows, supervising over 400 PhD students. Given the strong commitment of the University of Basel in public health, Basel has become the strongest pillar of SSPH+, with six partner institutes and over 50 University of Basel faculty members affiliated with SSPH+ (of which ca. 40 from Swiss TPH). Whereas the Dean, Nino Künzli, since 1 January 2015, is an employee of Swiss TPH, the other Directorate positions (in total two full-time-equivalents) are employees of the partner institutions in Zurich, Lugano and Geneva. As SERI’s central funding contributions came to an end mid-2017, SSPH+ moved into a new innovative era where funding from its twelve universities and other partners now secures the mission of SSPH+ and ensures provision of central services to its prime partners. Highlights of the collaborative SSPH+ activities relate to teaching and training offers on the PhD and post-graduate level. These courses and programmes are led by network partners. The most relevant one for Swiss TPH PhD students is the SSPH+ Inter-university Graduate Campus. It is open to all PhD students formally registered and approved as PhD students in one of the SSPH+ partner universities and supervised by any SSPH+ faculty member. The current E.U. funded PhD Fellowship Program GlobalP3HS is another flagship of SSPH+, bringing 50 competitively selected PhD students to Switzerland – with some dozen soon settled at Swiss TPH. Global P3HS students at Swiss TPH are expected to join the PPHS programme. For further information see: www.ssphplus.ch and the recent commentary in Lancet. SSPH+ is also the owner of the International Journal of Public Health (IJPH). With its global public health focus, IJPH is a potential outlet or publishing PhD thesis papers. The editorial office, led by Dr. Anke Berger, is located at Swiss TPH.
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Switzerland and Basel Switzerland Environment, people and language Situated right in the heart of Western Europe, Switzerland (size: ~ 41,000 km²) is landlocked and shares borders with Germany, France, Italy, Austria and the Principality of Liechtenstein. About 60% of the country is covered by the Alps mountain range. Most of the approximately 8.5 million (June 2019) inhabitants live in the plains (so-called “Mittelland”), where the major cities of Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne and Bern (capital) are also found. Switzerland has four official languages: German (66 %) spoken in a variety of “Swiss-German” dialects, French (23 %), Italian (8%) and Rhaeto-Romanic (0.6 %), spoken in the South-Eastern canton of Graubünden. The largest constituencies among the ~2 Mio. foreign residents come from Italy, Germany and Portugal (270-310’000), followed by France, Kosovo and Spain (80-125’000) and Turkey, Serbia and Macedonia (~65’000 each). The far largest foreigner community in Basel comes from Germany. State and currency The Swiss Confederation (official English country name – or Confoederatio Helvetica (CH) as the official latin name) was founded in 1848, though the first nucleus – a confederation of three cantons (provinces) – dates back to 1291. Today it consists of 26 cantons (provinces), which operate with a large degree of autonomy, each with their own health, education and tax systems, legal authorities, parliaments and governments, among other things. Swiss national day is celebrated on August 1st though Basel starts with major festivities along the Rhine on July 31st already. The currency in Switzerland is the Swiss Franc (CHF). One Swiss Franc is 100 cents (Rappen in German or Centimes in French). It is advisable to change money upon arrival in Switzerland, since exchange rates may be more favourable than abroad. Credit cards (VISA, Mastercard, etc.) and debit cards (Maestro, PostFinance) are widely accepted throughout the country. Education The vast majority of Swiss children go to tax-financed free public schools. After compulsory education, adolescents transfer to upper secondary level, which can be subdivided into general education programmes, and Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes. Adolescents can learn a profession through VET, which is mostly completed at training companies (apprenticeship) and combined with teaching at a VET school. The University system in Switzerland is decentralised and is the responsibility of the cantons. Undergraduate “Bologna” Bachelor and Master Degrees and the graduate PhD education are also publicly funded. However, the post-graduate advanced education programmes must be fully paid by student fees. There are nine cantonal universities, of which Basel is the oldest. Founded in 1460, the University of Basel is among the 20 oldest universities in the world. Two federal Universities have also been established, one in Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETHZ) and one in Lausanne (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL). More information about Switzerland can be found on the Internet at www.ch.ch.
General information – 23
Basel The city: culture and history Basel is located in the northwest of Switzerland, where the river Rhine turns northwards. In the north of the city, the borders of three countries (Switzerland, Germany and France) meet. Basel has about 199,000 inhabitants; the local language is a dialect of Swiss-German. The Basel airport is located about 10 km north of the city on French territory (Euro Airport Basel-Mulhouse). The airport is accessible from Basel via a customs-free road. Basel has two major railway stations, the Swiss Basel SBB, including the French Bâle SNCF parts, and the Basel Badischer Bahnhof owned by the German railways but located on Basel territory. The town was officially founded in 44 AC by the Roman local ruler Munatius Plancus. In the roman historiography, Basel is mentioned for the first time in 374 AC as Basilea. In 740 AC Basel became an Episcopal city (Bischofsstadt), which lead to its development as a trade and market town. In the 14th century, Basel experienced a plague epidemic and a devastating earthquake (1356). The city became world famous for hosting the great Council of Christianity from 1431 to 1448, and as a consequence - the pope granted Basel the right to establish a full university from 1460. In 1501, Basel joined the Swiss Confederation and shortly thereafter, the Bishop was expelled during the Protestant reformation. However, the bishop’s crook (in German “Baslerstab” - see image) was kept as the city’s coat-of-arms. In 1833, the canton was separated into Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft. Basel has a great variety of museums, and is famous for its trade fairs, most notably the world-largest Watch and Jewellery Fair “Basel World” and Art Basel. The city centre retains many beautiful old buildings from the late Middle Ages. The local carnival, “Fasnacht”, lasts for 3 days and is traditionally and socially the most important annual festivity of the locals. Climate and clothing Basel is one of the warmest and sunniest spots in Switzerland. However, long periods of stable weather are rare. Summer (Jul-Aug) temperatures usually vary, and a rise to over 35°C on some days is often followed by thunderstorms and a cooler period (~25°C). The degree of humidity is moderate. Visitors from tropical countries may find the weather during the rest of the year to be ‘chilly’. In winter (Dec-Feb), temperatures regularly fall below 0°C and precipitation may take the form of snow. Rain falls throughout the year. In winter, foreign students should bring warm clothing and rain protection. Buildings and public transport vehicles are adequately heated but in summer, air conditioning is usually not available. Eating and drinking There are many restaurants and take-away-stands throughout the city, although some (especially the restaurants) are quite expensive. It is cheaper to buy food in one of the many supermarkets (Migros, Coop, Denner, Aldi) offering a wide variety of ingredients and products, as well as ready-made meals and an ever-growing selection of organic food (labelled as “BIO”). The largest “BIO-only” store is close
24 – General information
by, at the corner Eulerstrasse / Schützenmattstrasse (Höheners). Most shops have fixed opening hours, usually Monday-Friday 8 am – 7 pm and until 6 pm on Saturday. Smaller local shops, as well as the shops in gas stations often have evening hours extending to 10 pm. Supermarkets around the railway station are open till late and on Sundays, as are a few smaller local shops. Swiss TPH students interested in African and Asian food recommend the two shops located at Centralbahnpassage / Centralbahnplatz 12 and Missionsstrasse 15. Typical Swiss specialities include “Fondue” and “Raclette”; both of which are based on melted cheese. Muslim, Jewish and vegetarian students should watch out for pork meat (“Schweinefleisch”), which is often included in various restaurant dishes. A few restaurants are “vegetarian only” (e.g. Tibits which might be more expensive). Religious services Switzerland has a Christian tradition, so there are many different Protestant and Catholic services offered in different languages in Basel. The website www.baselfellowship.org gives information about Protestant services held in English. There are also several mosques (close to Swiss TPH: Friedensgasse 18) and a synagogue (close to Swiss TPH: Eulerstrasse 2). Note that 45% of all ‘Basler’ do not belong to any church, 17% are protestants, 15% catholics and 10% muslim. Language German is the main language spoken in Basel and is the official teaching language of the University of Basel, thus, undergraduate students (BSc) must be proficient in that language. MSc and PhD-level teaching at Swiss TPH is mostly English (except at the Medical faculty). Students fluent in English can participate comfortably in all Swiss TPH activities. Most teaching and administrative staff (and many people in shops, offices, etc.) can communicate in German, French or English. Swiss TPH students from abroad are expected to have excellent English skills (corresponds to Cambridge certificate C1-C2). You might benefit from checking out the University of Basel Sprachenzentrum (Language Centre). They offer conversation and intensive courses in various languages. www.sprachenzentrum.unibas.ch Travelling in and around Basel Basel is a rather small city and it is quite easy to get around by foot or by bicycle. There is also a well developed public transport network that includes trams, buses and trains. Regular users of the public transport system should consider buying a monthly pass (‘U-Abo’), which entitles you to unlimited travel for a fixed charge (CHF 80 for residents, CHF 105 for visitors) or a HalfFare travel card (swisspass) that allows you to buy train and public transport tickets for half the price (see www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/half-fare-travelcard.html). Alternatively, it is also possible to buy day tickets (1-7 days). Also note that SBB has started to sell tickets / or day passes at discount prices, based on demand. Those are available only online. Tickets: www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/tickets-for-switzerland/supersaver-tickets.html Day passes: www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/tickets-for-switzerland/1-day-travelpass/saverday-pass.html.
General information – 25
Basel has become a very bike-friendly city, thus, we encourage the use of bicycles as a healthy mode of mobility. However, be aware of the dangers posed by tram tracks! Cross the tracks only in steep angles! Help preventing or reducing the number of bike accidents along the tram ways! With its location at the German and French borders, your identity might be checked at any time and any place in the city. Hence, it is essential that you always carry your picture identity card or passport with you. If you cross the boarder it is crucial to have your swiss permit AND your passport with you. The University of Basel The University of Basel is the oldest university in Switzerland and one of the 20 oldest universities of the world. It was founded on 4 April 1460, with a foundation ceremony held at the Basel Münster. During the 16th century, the Faculty of Medicine was renowned throughout Europe and could easily compete with the best faculties in Italy, France, the Netherlands and England. Early influential medical teachers include Paracelsus, Andreas Vesal, Felix Platter, Caspar Bauhin, Theodor Zwinger and Johann Niklaus Stupanus. Other illustrious figures that have been lecturers at the University of Basel include Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Barth, Daniel and Jakob Bernoulli, Jacob Burckhardt, Karl Jaspers, August Socin, among others. The variety of people involved in academia turned Basel into an early centre of printing and humanism. The University library was founded shortly after 1460. Today, with more than 3 million books and manuscripts, it is one of the biggest libraries in Switzerland. The University is supported by the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft. The University has been self-administered since 1996, with the “Universitätsrat” as the highest decision-making and supervisory body. Members of this body are elected by the two cantons of Basel. Dr. Beat Oberlin chairs the Universitätsrat. The current rector is Professor Andrea Schenker-Wicki (since 1 August 2015). The University counts approximately 12,000 students and 320 professors. The University of Basel has produced five Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine: Paul H. Müller (1948) for work on DDT; Tadeus Reichstein (1950) for work on hormones; Werner Arber (1978) for work on restriction enzymes; and Niels K. Jerne and Georges J.F. Köhler (1984) for work on the basic immunological theories and mono-clonal antibodies. Students at the University of Basel can take advantage of a variety of activities on offer, including sports, language courses, music, etc. An online marketplace is available at www.markt.unibas.ch, where students can buy and sell all kinds of goods for reasonable prices.
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Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology
Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 27
Introduction for MSc Students We would like to welcome you to our specialised Master programmes in Infection Biology and in Epidemiology. Some of you might already be familiar with Swiss TPH, having come through the University of Basel’s BSc programme, while others are new to the Institute. Over the last few years, the proportion of international students at Swiss TPH has increased substantially and we welcome this trend. Students with a special interest in basic biology and laboratory work will consider the Specialised Master of Infection Biology, while students with a primary interest in epidemiology and statistics will be more interested in the Specialised Master of Epidemiology. Swiss TPH’s philosophy is to cover topics in international and global health from the laboratory to the field and to the beds of patients and the homes of the populations concerned. Hence, we encourage lively and meaningful cross-communication between the two Master programmes. This handbook aims to give you (and your supervisors!) practical information about being a student at Swiss TPH and answers a number of frequently asked questions. This section in particular provides guidance and information for Master students and covers topics ranging from admission requirements to programme requirements and expectations. We hope this handbook will allow you to find information easily, saving you time and energy that would be better spent on getting the most out of your training at Swiss TPH and discovering the attractions of Basel and its surrounding areas.
Prof. Till Voss
Prof. Pascal Mäser
Prof. Christian Lengeler
28 – Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology
Prof. Martin Röösli
General Information and Procedures Admissions The Specialised Master of Science in Infection Biology is a 90 ECTS1 Bologna-compatible degree, requiring three semesters for completion. The Specialised Master of Science in Epidemiology is a 120 ECTS Bologna-compatible degree, requiring four semesters for completion. All lectures and courses are conducted in English. To be eligible for Master level studies at Swiss TPH, students must have the pre-requisites requested by the University of Basel according to the Bologna system for graduate studies. A Bachelor Degree with at least 180 ECTS credit points is required, of which at least 150 ECTS must have been acquired from the corresponding field of study (eligible BSc degrees; see below). Since fall 2016, the program may host a few guest students from the MSc in Global Health offered by University of Geneva. This program offers students the option to take one semester in partner programs such as the MSc in Epidemiology for those who like to focus on epidemiology. These guest students do not make the degree in Basel, but University of Geneva accepts the credits taken in Basel towards the MSc in Global Health. Admission requirements for the Specialised Master of Infection Biology: A Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, Biochemistry, Medicine, Dental Medicine, Veterinary Medicine or Pharmaceutical Sciences with a minimum average degree score of 5.0 and basic knowledge in infection biology / microbiology (at least 4 ECTS). Alternatively, students who pass the GRE® General Test in the area of «Quantitative Reasoning» or pass the GRE® Subject Test «Biology» with a score in the top 35th percentile will also be considered for admission (www.ets.org/gre). Admission requirements for the Specialised Master of Epidemiology: A Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, Medicine, Dental and Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing Sciences, Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Nutrition, Applied Biomedical Sciences, Sports Sciences, Biochemistry, Psychology, Sociology, Geography, Environmental Sciences and Economics, with a minimum average degree score of 5.0 and basic knowledge of mathematics / biostatistics (at least four ECTS). Students with degrees in other disciplines will be considered on an individual case basis. Alternatively, students that pass the GRE® General Test in the area of “Quantitative Reasoning” with a score in the top 35th percentile will also be considered for admission (www.ets.org/gre). Detailed guidelines regarding admission requirements are explained in the corresponding Studienordnungen and Wegleitungen (in German) and Infosheets (in English), which can be found at www.unibas. ch/en/Studies/Degree-Programs. Applications for Master studies are made online on the University of Basel website www.unibas.ch, following the links: “Studies” -> Application and Admission” -> “Application” -> Master programme-> Online application. Additional information on conditions of admission can be obtained online: www.unibas.ch/en/Student-Administration-Office-Enquiry.html. 1 The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) was developed by the European Commission in order to provide general and accepted procedures for the recognition of study qualifications gained by students on courses outside their home country.
Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology – 29
The application deadline for both Specialised Master Programs is the 30th of April (the University of Basel is very strict and does not accept any delayed applications). There is a special deadline for University of Basel Bachelor students (around mid-August). Timeframe Our Master programmes usually last for three semesters (Infection Biology) or four semesters (Epidemiology) and can only be started in the autumn semester, beginning in mid-September. During the first semester, students in Infection Biology focus on lectures and course work. In this period, the students will also choose a MSc research topic that they will conduct during the following spring and autumn terms followed by write-up of the MSc thesis. This timeframe is extended by an additional semester for the MSc Epidemiology. An oral MSc examination completes the degree requirements. In special cases, it is possible to prolong thesis completion until the end of the next semester. An extension beyond four / five semesters will only be considered in the case of documented exceptional circumstances. Lecture selection Once registered at the University (see below) and in possession of an official student card, it is still necessary to register for every lecture separately. This allows for the accurate calculation of ECTS credit points, which are awarded after completing all the lecture requirements. While it is possible to attend the same lecture twice, ECTS credit points can only be obtained once. Students have to register for lectures online via “Student Services” www.services.unibas.ch from the beginning of August until mid-October and from the beginning of February to mid-March. To use Student Services, you must have a University of Basel (Unibas) e-mail account and relevant password. Log in at www.services.unibas.ch - a detailed guideline in English for using Student Services can be found there. 1. Log in to the Student Services account. 2. Choose “Belegen” (i.e., “register”). 3. Switch to the “Vorlesungsverzeichnis” view and add your lectures to the list. 4. Register the selected list with “Student Services”. 5. Check your selected lectures at any time with the “Belegen” service. You may change, add, or drop lectures freely up until the end of the registration-period. Choosing a thesis topic A list of available Master thesis research topics will be distributed to all students. It is not possible to receive Master thesis topics in advance since all students should have the same chance of working on a specific science project. Once the student found his / her favourite Master projects, he / she should contact the responsible supervisor for further discussions. As soon as the arrangement between student and supervisor is finalized, students will receive a contract outlining procedures, and the rights and responsibilities of the student and supervisor. Please note that the contract must include the supervisor’s academic title. All students will be given a laptop for their research work and thesis write-up during their study time at Swiss TPH. The laptop remains the property of Swiss TPH and must be returned to the IT department after completing your Master degree. Please be aware: laptops that are returned damaged or not returned will involve personal charges, to be paid by the registered individual, of up to CHF 2,500 for compensation. Treat the rental laptop as if it was your own property please!
30 – Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology
First steps At the beginning of the programme, students must provide personal information, including their name, address and phone number (see Student Data Sheet in Appendix 1A). A photo will also be taken at this time. After registering at Swiss TPH, students must undertake a medical examination, which is done free of charge by the Swiss TPH medical services department. In addition, all students have to complete a security test to show that they have read and understood the safety rules at the Institute. It is recommended that you organise suitable accommodation as soon as you are accepted into the Master programme, as it is quite difficult to find affordable accommodation in Basel and nearby (see map or Appendix 3D) on short notice. You should also check whether or not you have adequate insurance coverage. Health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland and it is the student’s responsibility to arrange for the appropriate insurance coverage (e.g., www.swisscare.ch). It is also your own responsibility to organise your journey to Basel. Study goals The two Master degree programmes at Swiss TPH focus on Infection Biology and Epidemiology. The two programmes have the following goals: Master in Infection Biology: Students acquire solid theoretical and practical knowledge of infection biology with emphasis on pathogens causing poverty-related infectious diseases. They are able to plan and conduct their own research project, to work in a research team and to analyse, interpret and present their findings orally as well as in written form. Master in Epidemiology: Students develop solid theoretical and methodological knowledge of key concepts in epidemiology and applied biostatistics. They acquire the ability to design and execute basic field studies, collect and analyse data, report results in written and oral form as well as collaborate in multidisciplinary teams. For further information please read the degree profiles on our website: • Degree Profile Master in Infection Biology • Degree Profile Master in Epidemiology Social competences Students should develop a sense of responsibility in relation to their scientific activities. They should recognise ethical considerations in research and in the application of research results. Students will learn that addressing interdisciplinary questions requires teamwork among specialists of diverse disciplines and these skills will be practiced in seminars and during the completion of the Master thesis. Credit point system The requirements for Master studies are based on the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). One ECTS corresponds to 25-30 hours of student work. For example, if one ECTS is assigned to a one hour lecture during one semester of 14 weeks, this includes 14 hours of course attendance and for each of the 14 lectures one additional hour of student work to prepare or follow-up on course work. To obtain a Specialised Master of Science in Infection Biology degree students need to collect 90 ECTS credit points (30 ECTS lectures / courses, 50 ECTS MSc thesis, 10 ECTS final exam).
Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology – 31
For the Specialised Master of Science in Epidemiology degree students need to collect 120 ECTS credit points (60 ECTS lectures / courses, 50 ECTS MSc thesis, 10 ECTS final exam). ECTS credit points collected from lectures and courses are given for completing them with a “pass” grade. The criteria for achieving a pass grade are specific to each course, and may involve completion of assignments and / or written or oral examinations. A failed lecture can be repeated. Note that half-ECTS (0.5; 1.5 etc.) are not awarded. For the Specialised Master in Infection Biology, the thesis research project focuses on laboratory work and is usually carried out at Swiss TPH under the supervision of a teaching staff member. For the Specialised Master in Epidemiology, thesis research focuses on epidemiological field studies, bibliographic research, analysis of existing epidemiological databases or on epidemiological modelling. A Swiss TPH teaching staff member supervises this work. For projects involving field work overseas, external experts usually provide additional on-site supervision. Swiss TPH Faculty Representatives (see Table in Appendix 2A) are formally responsible towards the Faculty of Science of the University of Basel for the Master students and their work. They can delegate supervisory responsibility to members of the teaching staff or to project leaders at Swiss TPH. Supervisors advise students throughout their studies, oversee the Master thesis and assess students in the final Master degree examination. MSc courses (total 30 / 60 ECTS) Each semester, Swiss TPH publishes a list of available lectures and courses, indicating the number of ECTS awarded by each. These lists are updated each autumn semester. For the Master in Infection Biology curriculum, students must acquire 30 ECTS credit point through lectures and courses. Of these, 18 ECTS are acquired from a list of mandatory lectures and courses at Swiss TPH. Students are free to choose the remaining lectures as they see fit, but these additional lectures should be agreed upon with the thesis supervisor. For the Master in Epidemiology, 60 ECTS credit points from lectures and courses are required, of which 45 are mandatory. In order to pass your MSc studies in Epidemiology you need: (a) Exactly 15 CP from module “Foundation in Epidemiology” (b) Exactly 15 CP from module “Biostatistics and Computing” (c) At least 10 CP from module “Global & Public Health” - with the possibility to take additional CP by visiting the Monday seminar more than once. (d) At least 5 CP from module “Transferable Skills and Competences”, of which two courses totalling 2 CP are compulsory (Good scientific conduct in health sciences and Application to an ethics committee). (e) 15 CP from module “Advances in Epidemiology, Statistics and Global & Public Health” Surplus credit points from non-compulsory lectures out of “Global & Public Health” (c) as well as “Transferable Skills and Competences” (d) may be counted towards “Advances in Epidemiology, Statistics and Global & Public Health” (e). But the reverse is of course not possible. With regard to transferring CP from (c) or (d), please note that you cannot split credit points between modules if lectures award more than one credit point. In other words, if you want to shift a course with 2 CP from (d) to (e), you should make sure that the remaining courses in (d) still total the 5 required CP.
32 – Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology
In module (e) credit points from other study programmes of the University Basel may be used in agreement with your Swiss TPH supervisor. If you plan to attend lectures at other universities in Switzerland or abroad (in agreement with your supervisor), you must request permission from the teaching commission (walter.salzburger@unibas.ch, cc to Christian Lengeler and Pascal Gschwind) BEFORE you take that course. Credit points from other universities will only be granted if at least 3 CP. Please make sure that you register for all the mandatory lectures of your particular Master course. If you fail to do so, the University of Basel will not be able to issue your final degree. Students are advised to take most of their lectures before they embark on their thesis work,- especially if field work abroad is required. Master thesis (50 ECTS) The Master thesis, including preparation for the final examination (Appendix 1B & 1C), usually takes one year to complete. 50 ECTS are granted for an accepted Master thesis. The thesis topic must have been approved by one of the Faculty Representatives at Swiss TPH. Late completion (after the end of the second thesis semester) is considered a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;failure to completeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; unless supervisors have given the student formal permission to extend the submission date. Master theses should ideally be between 40 and 80 pages. The thesis is evaluated and graded by the Faculty Representative, together with the supervisor of the Master project (if different from the Faculty Representative), on a scale from 1 (worst) to 6 (best). If the resulting grade is a fail (less than 4) or a 6, an additional person from the Faculty of the University of Basel, who is not directly involved in the project, will be asked to give an independent expert assessment of the thesis. Final examination (10 ECTS) The final examination is an oral test covering the topic of the thesis, including the relevant scientific literature, and the topics of infection biology or epidemiology more generally. In addition, some supervisors like to also discuss more specific areas within the fields of infection biology or epidemiology (e.g. methods); please clarify with your supervisor in advance. The examination lasts 60 minutes. Examiners include the Faculty Representative and a second person from the Swiss TPH teaching staff who also serves as a chairperson. An additional examiner can be invited at the discretion of the student and / or the supervisor. The oral final exam can only take place once the MSc thesis has been accepted and 30 / 60 ECTS credit points from the respective Specialised MSc study programmes have been acquired. The examination can be held at any time during the final semester. The examination is graded on a scale from 1 (worst) to 6 (best). The student earns 10 ECTS if s/he receives a passing grade (score of 4 or more) at the oral exam.
Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 33
Specialised Master degrees in Infection Biology or Epidemiology The degree is completed once the following ECTS credit points have been acquired: • 50 ECTS from thesis work; • 30 / 60 ECTS from lecture work, including all compulsory lectures and courses; and • 10 ECTS from the final oral examination. The final thesis grade is calculated by averaging the grade of the final examination (weight 1/3) and the grade of the written thesis (weight 2/3). The written certification of the MSc degree details the topic of the MSc thesis as well as the various grades. After the final oral exam, the cover page of the Master thesis as well as the marked grading sheet must be transferred IMMEDIATELY to the Swiss TPH student administration office. An electronic copy of the final Master thesis must be given within 2-3 weeks to the student administration office and one hard copy to the Swiss TPH library as well as to other appropriate recipients (persons involved in the work, etc.). Salaries and scholarships Swiss TPH does not pay MSc students a salary nor does Swiss TPH offer scholarships for Master students, as funding for MSc studies is generally unavailable from Swiss TPH sources. Study fees of currently CHF 860 per term (“Semestergebühren”) have to be paid by the student, as do health insurance costs and living expenses. Currently, there are no differences in fees to be paid by Swiss and foreign students at the University of Basel. Programme contacts and course guidance The following people are responsible for the Swiss TPH Master programmes at the University of Basel: Prof. Till Voss Specialised Master in Infection Biology till.voss@swisstph.ch (Deputy: Prof. Pascal Mäser) Prof. Christian Lengeler Specialised Master in Epidemiology christian.lengeler@swisstph.ch (Deputy: Prof. Martin Röösli) Pascal Gschwind Administrative Course Coordinator pascal.gschwind@swisstph.ch
34 – Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology
Checklist for MSc Students To apply to an MSc course, complete the application form available on the University of Basel website and submit the application along with a letter of motivation explaining your research interests and why you wish to study at Swiss TPH. Once students have been accepted to the Master programme, they should follow the checklist below. Students already registered at the University of Basel can start with point #6 of the checklist. 1. After receiving your admission letter from the University, apply for a Swiss residence permit and, depending on your country of origin, for a visa to enter Switzerland. 2. Find accommodation in or around Basel, as soon as possible (Appendix 3D). 3. Ensure that your health insurance covers your stay in Basel. Be aware that health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland and you need to arrange for this before coming to Switzerland (e.g., ww.swisscare.com). 4. Arrange your travel to Basel by yourself. 5. Register formally and in person at the University of Basel at the given time. Bring along original certificates, including high school certificates, as requested in the admission letter. You will then get a student card, as well as an e-mail address from the University of Basel. 6. In the first two weeks choose the lectures you want to attend and register (“belegen”) online at the University of Basel, using the Student Servicesprogramme. Final registration only has to be done by October. 7. When the autumn semester starts, get your personal Swiss TPH ID-badge (deposit CHF 100) to be able to access all learning and teaching rooms at Swiss TPH. 8. Complete the student data sheet (see Appendix 1A) and return it to the Swiss TPH student administration. 9. Make an appointment at the Swiss TPH health clinic for a free medical check-up (paid by Swiss TPH). 10. Familiarise yourself with the Swiss TPH library. To use a printer, you need your personal IDbadge. 11. When writing up the Master thesis, decide with your supervisor on a date for the oral exam and who will be the chairperson of the exam. Register for the Master exam by completing the “Anmeldung zur Masterprüfung Biologie” form, no later than 4 weeks before the exam. Take the registration form to the University study secretariat, Mrs Susan Kaderli, “Studiensekretariat”, Klingelbergstrasse 50, 4056 Basel, and inform Swiss TPH student administration accordingly. 12. Pick up the relevant forms for the oral exam from the Swiss TPH student administation (Pascal Gschwind) 13. After the oral exam, return the Master agreement (signed by the supervisor and chairperson) to the Swiss TPH student administration. 14. When you have successfully finished your Master course, provide within 2 weeks a copy of your thesis to the student administration office (electronic version) and to the Swiss TPH library (hard copy). 15. Complete outstanding administrative and academic formalities: Return your badge and collect the deposit; return all books to the library; provide copies of the data collected and other essential computer or archive files to your supervisor.
Guidelines for the Master Degrees in Infection Biology and Epidemiology – 35
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
36 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH Overview of general guidelines for Swiss TPH PhD studies University of Basel offers PhDs1 in many subject areas or disciplines (or “subjects”), called “Promotionsfächer”. Formal responsibilities for those are rooted in the Faculties, thus, depending on the chosen discipline, rules may partly differ. Swiss TPH’s academic faculty supervises PhD studies in various faculties, though most frequently in the Faculty of Science followed by those enrolling in a Faculty of Medicine discipline. PhD “subjects” (Promotionfächer) offered by the Faculty of Science: • Cell Biology • Epidemiology • Microbiology • Zoology PhD “subjects” (Promotionfächer) offered by the Medical Faculty: • Biomedical Engineering; • Clinical Research (incl MD / PhD) • Epidemiology / Public Health, including Insurance Medicine (incl MD / PhD) • Medicine Development (incl MD / PhD) • Medical and Health Ethics • Nursing Sciences • Sports Science The PhD offered by the Medical Faculty are called Dr. Sc. Med. in German (PhD in English). For details, see the Faculty of Medicine website. PhDs offered by the Faculty of Economics Students with a master’s degree in economics can also earn a PhD in economics under the supervision of Prof. Günther Fink. Students will have to apply to the economics department, and will then be enrolled in the Basel Graduate School of Economics. Course work typically entails 18 ECTS, and should focus mostly on economics courses. General rules The general rules for PhD students are outlined in the PhD rules and regulations (“Promotionsordnung” in German), which can be downloaded from the faculty websites, e.g. the Faculty of Science’s: www. philnat.unibas.ch/dokumente, or the Faculty of Medicine site www.medizin.unibas.ch/de/karriere/doctoral-degrees/ (an English version can be requested from the Faculty of Medicine), respectively. One difference in the regulations of the two faculties relates to the eligibility to enrol as a PhD: In the Science Faculty, not all Master degrees qualify for unrestricted access to the PhD; students with not 1
PhD: Doctor of Philosophy; latin: philosophiae doctor
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 37
fully qualifying MSc’s (e.g., a MSc in economics or in social sciences or a Medical Master degree) may be required to do extra course work (which comes in addition to the course work needed for the PhD). The Medical Faculty regulation is open to inter-disciplinary research beyond faculty bounderies, thus, all MSc’s (from qualifying universities) are eligible for a PhD in one of the above mentioned Promotionsfächer (“subjects”) of the Medical Faculty as long as those MSc build a relevant background for the PhD research (according to the judgment of the supervisor). Choosing a discipline It is the responsibility of the supervisor to choose the right discipline (Promotionsfach) with / for the PhD student. The choice is usually driven by the content of the thesis. However, there is certainly some overlap among these life science research areas. The strongest and indeed complete overlap consists for the two options to do a PhD in epidemiology. The traditional choice of Swiss TPH students has been the Faculty of Science programme, established by Marcel Tanner already in 1992. The Faculty of Medicine offers PhDs since 2009, including the discipline “Epidemiology / Public Health including Insurance Medicine”. From the research and student perspective, the two options are the same. The major difference originates from the different faculty affiliation (see details in Appendix 2A). At University of Basel, PhD studies are segregated by faculties, who define regulations and rules about the supervision. Those rules are partly in conflict with the need for inter-faculty multidisciplinary teams of supervisors as often needed in epidemiology and in many domains of public health sciences. Thus, your choice of the discipline (Promotionsfach), thus, the faculty, ultimately depends on who your supervisor(s) is / are. For PhD studies in epidemiology where supervisors (or at least the Group I Full or Associate Professor supervisor) are affiliated in the Faculty of Medicine (or got the permission to act like Group I professors in the Faculty of Medicine), the PhD in Epidemiology / Public Health including Insurance Medicine will be the easiest choice. Instead if supervisors (or at least the Group I representative) are rooted in the Faculty of Science (or got the permission to act like Group I professors in the Faculty of Science) the PhD in Epidemiology of the Faculty of Science will be the optimal choice. The Faculty of Science regulations require both supervisors to be members of the Faculty of Science; for members of other faculties, permission to supervise must be requested from the Dean’s office. The Faculty of Medicine regulation requires instead only one supervisor to be a member of the Medical Faculty at the University of Basel (Group I in that case). The rules in the Faculty of Economics are similar to the one in the Medical Faculty. Please discuss with your supervisor or feel free to contact the Head of ET (nino.kuenzli@swisstph.ch) (or Christine Mensch) anytime in case of uncertainties on how to find solutions in the complex forest of the current Uni Basel regulations. Please discuss uncertainties prior to the submission of registrations to omit long administrative “correction cycles”. Combined Medical Doctorate (MD-PhD) The MD-PhD title allows research-oriented physicians to do the MD and a PhD in a combined way (Dr. med. and PhD). A major advantage of this combined track is to limit the total time needed for this double-title to the 3+ years of a usual PhD. In general the first first-author publication counts as the MD and the following 2+ provide the PhD, resulting in the MD / PhD. Doing first an MD-thesis only (usally approximately 1 year) followed by a PhD later on results in investing some 4+ years. MD-PhD theses can be lab-based, thus, can be performed in any of the disciplines of (basic) sciences but as well in epidemiology and public health or in clinical research – thus, all the above listed “subjects” / Promotionsfächer qualify for the MD-PhD track. At Swiss TPH, all rules set up for PhD students also apply to MD-PhD students, thus, all information provided below for PhDs also apply to MD-PhDs. Most MD-PhDs may be funded through projects like all other PhDs. However, Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences organizes a
38 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
competitive scholarship program funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and other donors. Scholarships are open to MD-PhD candidates for all disciplines, and the selection process is highly competitive, with pre-submission deadlines (pre-selection at Uni Basel level) usually mid December and decisions taken in the following May. Details are available at www.medizin.unibas.ch/de/karriere/doctoral-degrees/md-phd/. Contact person at Swiss TPH is Nino Künzli (nino.kuenzli@swisstph.ch). Requirements A completed Master degree, comprising at least 90 ECTS2 credit points3, is a prerequisite for doctoral studies at University of Basel. A Master of Advanced Studies (e.g. MPH) or any other MSc with only 60 ECTS credit points do NOT qualify for doctoral studies at the University of Basel. Application Persons interested in pursuing a PhD at Swiss TPH need to find a supervisor (“ErstbetreuerIn”) and agree on a research topic, as well as on the means to finance the 3-4 years as a PhD (or MD-PhD) and the related research project. An official application form can be obtained on the Swiss TPH webpage (www.swisstph.ch/jobs.html). Contact the Swiss TPH PhD Student Administrator, Christine Mensch, to help clarify eligibility questions or concerns: phone +41 (0)61 284 82 89, e-mail: christine.mensch@swisstph.ch. Swiss TPH makes the final decision on whether or not to accept a PhD candidate. Acceptance of PhD students is very restrictive and competitive. There are no core funded PhD positions or fellowship programmes available from Swiss TPH. All PhDs are either financed through projects of supervisors or through fellowships acquired by the students to join Swiss TPH (e.g. Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships for Foreign Scholars and Artists - ESKAS). Funding must be secured and guaranteed for the entire PhD period, thus, the funding mechanism must be explained in the proposal. Students and supervisors will agree on the PhD discipline “Promotionsfach” to be enrolled in (see options and decision making above). Once the research project and logistics, including the mode of financing, have been agreed with the supervisor and the formal eligibility of the student confirmed by the Swiss TPH student administration, the student needs to start the registration process at the University of Basel. University registration „Immatrikulation“ PhD students at Swiss TPH need to be registered at the University of Basel for the duration of their PhD studies. All PhD (or MD-PhD) students have to visit the PhD Student Administration Office of Swiss TPH (Christine Mensch) in order to be included in the PhD tracking system. Students already holding a Master degree from the University of Basel continuing towards a PhD must re-register at the University of Basel and indicate their new status. The “Application for admission 2 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) was developed by the European Commission in order to provide general and accepted procedures for the recognition of study qualifications gained by students on courses outside their home country. 3 One ECTS credit point is equivalent to 25–30 student working hours.
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 39
to doctoral study”-form must be completed and signed by the First Supervisor (Erstbetreuer) and submitted along with a fee of CHF 100 to the Admission Office of the University of Basel. A copy of this form must be submitted to the Student Coordinator, Christine Mensch, for inclusion in the student database. Students coming from outside the University of Basel need to be formally registered at the University of Basel. Upon registering, you will receive a student card enabling you to benefit from the many discounts offered to students. A registration fee of CHF 100 is required. Registration details and online registration in German and English are available under www.unibas.ch/ en/studies. A number of documents are required for registration (a complete list of required documents can be found in the application set for doctoral studies section of the University of Basel website), including a letter signed by the supervisor confirming the student’s acceptance The student coordinator will arrange this letter and the future PhD student’s details will be entered in the student database. A provisional working title of the thesis has to be indicated at the Faculty of Science, whereas a short proposal at the Faculty of Medicine is mandatory. At registration, the potential PhD co-supervisors must be named as well (only Faculty of Medicine). See Appendix 2A about the related regulations for PhDs in the Science and the Medical Faculty. Deadlines for registration for doctoral studies are 31 July for the autumn semester and 5 January for the spring semester.
Administrativ Checklist for New PhD Students 1. Visit the Student Administration Office (Christine Mensch, Student Coordinator) to take care of administrative details. Complete the Student Data Sheet PhD Student (Appendix 2L). 2. Go to the library to have your photo taken for the ID / access badge (make sure to make an appointment (library@swisstph.ch). 3. Collect your badge (and hand over deposit of CHF 100) from the main secretariat (Socinstrasse 57, ground floor). 4. Sign your work contract (available from HR) or PhD regulation (available from ET). Upon signing the contract or regulation you will receive an information package, including important material about security, job ticket for public transportation, etc. Read it carefully. 5. Make an appointment with the Swiss TPH medical services department (located at Socinstrasse 57, first floor, open until 2 p.m.) for your compulsory medical check-up, which is free of charge for the student, but paid by the institute.
40 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
Structured PhD Programmes It is highly recommended to Swiss TPH PhD students to enrol in one of the structured PhD programmes once accepted as PhD students. Structured PhD programmes emerged all across Switzerland during the past decade. The purpose of such “programmes” is the strengthening of the PhD track. To register in such a programme, one must be accepted and registered as a PhD student at University of Basel. It is not possible to only register in such “PhD Programme” without being accepted and immatriculated as a PhD student at University of Basel. The title of PhD is awarded by the University of Basel only. A “programme” cannot provide the PhD title (only a certificate in addition to the PhD). Additional registration in a structured PhD programme is not mandatory but it may be highly attractive and profitable for many who do a PhD at Swiss TPH. Please discuss this option early on (i.e. at the very beginning of your PhD period) with your supervisor to join within the first 4-6 months of your PhD. PhD students registered in structured PhD programmes must fulfil additional requirements (such as at least 18 instead of 12 ECTS of course work). This comes though with a range of extra benefits such as access to funding for courses or conferences, special events, career training and networking among a critical mass of PhD students. Admission rules and procedures may differ across programmes, 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: you must adhere to the special requirements of these programmes to get the certificate and the free access to courses and other offers. If you do not accumulate the required ECTS until the defence, you may be charged the course fees in retrospect. The world of PhD programmes is changing: we are currently in the process of combining a few PhD programmes into one school, the graduate school health sciences (GSHS), led by an inter-faculty team chaired by Nino Künzli and coordinated by Anja Matthiä. All Swiss TPH PhD students will have to get enrolled in the GSHS together with students of the former structured PhD programmes, namely the University of Basel Medical Faculty PhD Programme 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 programme in Public Health doesn’t accept new students anymore, those already enrolled continue to benefit from the programme though. Furthermore, all PhD students are welcomed to the SSPH+ Inter-University Graduate Campus – the new 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 students of Swiss TPH still enrolled in those programmes, we keep some basic information of all here below. Feel free to approach the head of ET at anytime in case of uncertainties.
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 41
PhD Programme in Health Sciences (PPHS) Funded by the University of Basel, this programme offers, among other things, free courses, networking, career training, and funds for external courses. Even though this programme is rooted in the Medical Faculty, PhD students in the Health Sciences from Medical and Science Faculty in any of the following disciplines (‘Promotionsfächer’) are eligible: Clincal Research, Nursing Science, Sports Science, Epidemiology / Public Health including Insurance Medicine (all Medical Faculty) or Epidemiology (Science Faculty). Registration is online. Eligible students must agree to pass at least 18 ECTS. The PPHS website (www.pphs.unibas.ch) provides all information. PPHS is coordinated by Dr. Anja Matthiä at Swiss TPH; pphs@unibas.ch. PPHS is particularly attractive as it has a formal agreement with the SSPH+ IGC: all courses offered by the two programs are freely accessible to the enrolees of both programs (for SSPH+ IGC courses a registration fee of 30 CHF is charged). For any related questions, feel free to contact Nino Künzli (nino.kuenzli@swisstph.ch) who is currently the chair of the PPHS board.
International PhD Programme Infection Biology (IPPIB) This PhD Program ended in 2019 but will continue its aims in the new Graduate School Health Sciences. Until the official start of the Graduate School Health Sciences, planned in 2021, current PhD students can use the offerings by PPHS, PhD Programme Health Sciences. New students in the Swiss TPH Department of Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology (MPI) are encouraged to register to PPHS, https://pphs.unibas.ch/program/registration/ Contact person for PhD students in the area of infection biology is Pascal Mäser (pascal.maeser@swisstph.ch).
42 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
SSPH+ Inter-university Graduate Campus Since 1 June 2019 (following the previous SSPH+ PhD programme in Public Health), PhD students have the opportunity to enroll in the Inter-university Graduate Campus of the Swiss School of Public Health SSPH+ to benefit from its offers to strengthen their academic skills, competencies, career paths and networks. The only eligibility criteria for enrollment are the following: • The primary supervisor of the PhD student must be an SSPH+ Faculty member (note: Swiss TPH facutly are by default SSPH+ faculty member) • PhD students must be formally registered and approved as a PhD student in one of the SSPH+ Foundation partner universities. The SSPH+ IGC offers courses in public health research, advanced methods, and thematic workshops as well as SSPH+ seasonal schools. Courses are taught by national and international experts and aim to provide high-level training for PhD students as well as stimulating networking opportunities. Registered SSPH+ students can attend PhD courses for free (apart from a processing fee of 30 CHF per course) and the SSPH+ seasonal schools (and courses by other partners) at reduced fees. There are no additional requirements in terms of ECTS, publications etc. apart from the ones of the home university of the PhD student. The SSPH+ IGC is managed and coordinated by Ann Walser (awalser@ssphplus.ch), Graduate Campus Manager, at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University Bern. For all information see www.ssphplus/en/graduate-campus/. Anja Matthiä, PPHS coordinator, is in close contact with Ann Walser. Nino Künzli, Head of ET and Dean of SSPH+, is the local (Basel) representative and steering board member of IGC. International Graduate School (IGS) North-South The IGS North-South is not a structured PhD program but a graduate school of the Universities of Bern, Basel, and Zurich, www.igs-north-south.ch. It is dedicated to establishing an international research network that analyses the impacts of global change, with a view to advancing sustainable development worldwide through interdisciplinary collaborations. It emphasises an integrative, partnership-based research approach encompassing higher education at the PhD level, innovation and application. Upon completion of course work (at least 12 ECTS), the IGS North-South offers their students a Certificate of Specialization in Sustainable Development, which supplements the degree they receive from their home institution. The PhD students may choose from a broad range of disciplinary and thematic courses offered at the participating Swiss institutions. The three partner universities usually rotate the leadership for the annual IGS North-South Summer School (5 ECTS). If your research and training needs fit into IGS North-South, discuss this option with your supervisor. IGS North-South summer schools may be of particular value also for students from the global South.
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 43
Graduate School Health Sciences – the future highlight To strengthen the PhD tracks in health sciences, the University of Basel will launch the Graduate School Health Sciences (GSHS). Though administratively rooted in the Medical Faculty, the GSHS expands the vision of inter-faculty multi-disciplinary health sciences in line with long traditions of PhD tracks at Swiss TPH. It is planned that the GSHS will have an inter-faculty regulation (Promotionsordnung) approved by both the Science and the Medical faculty. It will be mandatory for PhD students at the Medical Faculty and be open to all health sciences PhD students of other faculties and subjects (Promotionsfächer) of the University of Basel who would like to join. It will become the “one-stop-shop” for PhD students and supervisors engaged in PhD studies in health sciences. GSHS will offer courses, seminars, seasonal schools and access to networking opportunities as needed in the interdisciplinary fields of health sciences. It guides PhD students to comply with regulations and requirements set by the faculties of their subject. It assists supervisors in selecting the most talented PhD candidates. The GSHS Steering Board (PhD Ausschuss) will secure the quality of PhD tracks, profile the academic content and the development as well the strategic orientation of the GSHS as a platform tailored to the academic needs of PhD tracks. The GSHS Coordination Office guarantees the administration and coordination of the GSHS and its academic board. GSHS replaces and consolidates various parallel governance structures, commissions and boards currently involved in the parallel management of health sciences PhD tracks including the above mentioned PPHS and IPPIB and others. Thus, stay tuned and watch out what’s coming next. PhD students are also represented and most welcome in the GSHS development group, coordinated by Anja Matthiä at Swiss TPH, anja.matthiae@swisstph.ch. Mailing list: pphs@maillist.unibas.ch Information about courses and events in the public health and related is sent to this mailing list and published online: https://pphs.unibas.ch/curriculum-2/courses-overview/ and https://pphs.unibas.ch/events-in-the-health-sciences/. Everyone can register for the mailing list. We will include your email address to the mailling list automatically. You can unsubscribe again at any time. Thus, you have the choice to receive course and event information or not. Everyone can write to the list (pphs@maillist.unibas.ch), e.g. in case you know of an interesting event to share. Interested people, e.g. Master or prospective PhD students, are welcome to join the list. In case you have any questions, please contact Anja Matthiä: pphs@unibas.ch.
44 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
Relevant steps taken during the PhD studies at Swiss TPH At the beginning of the PhD, discuss with your supervisor the aims and objectives of your PhD, which will be written in a proposal in the first 6 months. Throughout the PhD studies the student and the supervisor need to meet regularly to discuss the required next steps of the PhD process (annual meeting mandatory, copies thereof need to be given to the Student Administration Office). The final product of PhD study and research are peer-reviewed publications and/or a written thesis. Following the completion of the thesis, an oral exam is held. The below sections outline these processes. PhD proposal Swiss TPH procedures do not depend on the faculty of your PhD subject, thus, information below applies to all PhD students at the Swiss TPH. New PhD students are required to first prepare a PhD proposal in collaboration with their supervisor – use the proposal template available at the Research Commission coordination. Once your supervisor agrees with your proposal, all PhD proposals are thereafter reviewed by three senior Swiss TPH staff members. Once the supervisor and reviewers agree with the revised version, it will be discussed for approval at a meeting of the Research Commission of the Swiss TPH (The PhD proposal evaluation process). The Research Commission meets regularly and the meeting dates are communicated in advance on the Intranet and the Institute’s hompage www.swisstph.ch/teaching/doctorate. html (see list of links towards the bottom on the right). Special to PhD Students enrolled to the Medical Faculty: Once your proposal has been approved by the Swiss TPH Research Commision, make sure to fill in the cover page (= PhD Agreement) required by the Commision of the Medical Faculty (‘PhD Ausschuss’). It is extremely similar to our own but might have some special requirements, in particular the roles of the supervisors have to be described. Please submit your final proposal together with this PhD Agreement to Christine Mensch, christine.mensch@swisstph.ch. She will submit these documents with an extra “default letter”, on behalf of Nino Künzli, to the Faculty of Medicine. This letter confirms that your proposal already passed the Research Commission.
The aims of the PhD proposal review process are to: • Achieve high scientific quality of the proposals. • Assure optimal use of internal collaborations. • Foster collaborations across units and departments. • Assure a comparable and high training standard of all Swiss TPH PhD students. • Critically review the funding situation of each PhD student. • Evaluate ethical issues of each proposal (Appendix 3). • Allow an efficient exchange of information about ongoing research activities within Swiss TPH. Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 45
The PhD proposal evaluation process (more detailed in Appendix 2E) All students must submit their proposal three (to maximum six) months after having registered as PhD students at the University of Basel to the Research Commission: Inform Marco Waser
(marco.waser@swisstph.ch / research.commission@swisstph.ch) when you plan to present your proposal to the Research Commission. The proposal labelled as “proposal draft for review” has to be uploaded to the provided students’ folder in Alfresco six weeks prior to the targeted meeting. The supervisor should ask two Swiss TPH colleagues and the statistical support group to critically review the proposal. The reviews should be carried out within two weeks. The reviewers use the form (Appendix 2G) to evaluate the proposal and then upload the review into the students Alfresco folder. The PhD student should organise a meeting with the reviewers, the designated statistician and their supervisor to discuss the reviewers’ comments. Required adaptations of the proposal should be made by the PhD student and the version labelled as the “revised proposal” uploaded together with the completed cover page into the Alfresco folder at least one week prior to the Research Commission meeting. The reviewers check the revised proposal and complete the review by filling in the second column in the reviewers’ form. The completed review has to be uploaded to the student’s folder two days before the Research
Commission meeting. At the Research Commission meeting, each PhD student presents his / her revised proposal within five to max. seven minutes (Appendix 2F). The short presentation should be understandable for a mixed audience. The reviewers and the designated statistician give a short comment. All Research Commission members can then provide input. In general, the proposals will not need more than 15 minutes (in total) to be discussed with the Research Commission. PhD proposal outline A detailed description of how to structure a PhD proposal can be found in Appendix 2B (Guidelines for writing PhD proposals). Use the proposal template to respect the Swiss TPH corporate identity. Students have to indicate whether their proposal is part of a research project which has already been peer-reviewed by a funding agency (such as SNF). If the PhD study is part of a larger research project, it is important to outline the specific role and responsibility of the PhD student. In addition to the description of the research planned, information about the composition of the doctoral committee (see below), ethical issues (Appendix 3), internal and external support, a budget plan, training to be undertaken during 46 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
PhD studies (see below) and a detailed timeline must be provided. The planned research should allow for production of at least three scientific manuscripts although a target of five publications is desirable. Doctoral committee These rules have substantially changed as of autumn 2016. Thus, if you enrolled after 1.8.2016, please read this carefully. Do not use older Student Handbooks and make sure supervisors are also aware of these changes. The doctoral committee consists of at least three mandatory members, namely the First and Second Supervisors (“Erst- und ZweitbetreuerIn”) and one external expert / examiner (formerly Ko-Referrent). Faculties have slightly different rules about minimal requirements for the First and Second Supervisors but in any case it is required that at least one of the two supervisors to be a Group I (Full or Associate Professor) faculty member (see 6.1. about what disciplines belong to which faculty). A group of Swiss TPH Professors not in Group I or not in the Faculty of Science got the Faculty’s permission to act like Group I members in PhD committees of our students - please see Appendix 2A for a detailed description of the rules with a list of these Swiss TPH academics). Moreover, new models emerge where the role of the First Supervisor can be shared (First Supervisor and First Co-Supervisor). This model with in essence three “main supervisors” allows to officially have e.g. a junior scientist, who is not yet a faculty member, to assign in the role of the First Supervisor (conditional on the First Co-Supervisor fulfilling the formal role as a Professor). The Science Faculty accepts this model according to an official Memo approved by the Dean. The commission / PhD Ausschuss of the Medical Faculty is also open to consider such proposals. The External Expert(s) (formerly Ko-Referrent) may be any scientist in good standing (at least PhD) and familiar with the research. They must come from an academic institution outside Swiss TPH / University of Basel and must not be connected in any way to the PhD thesis (for example as associated expert or collaborator). Most importantly, the External Expert does not co-author any manuscripts of the PhD thesis. Preferrably he / she should also not be a regular co-author of the supervisors. A request has to be filled at the Faculty of Science or the Commission of the Faculty of Medicine to approve the external advisor (via student administration). The External Expert will be reading and marking the thesis and s/ he will be invited by the Dean’s office to attend the thesis examination. In addition to the three (or four) members indicated above, other scientists involved in the thesis work can be invited to the thesis defence, if they were involved with the student’s work as collaborator. The choice of such individuals is up to the Primary supervisor and the student. The Chair of the Examination Committee is responsible for the organisation and the correct procedures of the thesis defence (Appendix 2A). In case of Science Faculty defence, the supervisor can propose the Chair. In case of Medical Faculty and Faculty of Economics it is usually the PhD committee of the faculty who assigns a chair. In case of Medical Faculty PhDs, the Dean’s office (Moira Lux) prepares all the documents for the defence and delivers them directly to the Chair. Course work and training / Learning Contracts As per University of Basel regulations, PhD students are required to complete a minimum of 12 ECTS CP’s of formal training (for a definition of ECTS see 5.1. credit point system; 1 ECTS = 25-30 student hours of
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work). Appendices 2C and 2D describe the skills and competences needed for a successful completion of the PhD in Infection Biology and the PhD in Epidemiology (Science Faculty). The PPHS website does so for the PhDs of the Medical Faculty and the SSPH+ IGC is described on their website too. These guidelines should be used to assess the training needs of individual students. In addition to subject specific knowledge, students need to acquire research skills and to develop personal and management skills (“transferable skills”). The 12 ECTS represent a minimum number and students lacking required qualifications should consider additional training after discussion with their supervisor. Also see chapter on structured PhD programmes as attractive additional options – it is highly recommended to enrol in such program although they require at least 18 ECTS. The total ECTS CP’s required are decided by the doctoral committee together with the students and must be indicated as the Learning Agreement in the research proposal. Swiss TPH courses offered through the Master programmes in Epidemiology and in Infection Biology present additional training opportunities for PhD students. Also note that PhD students registered at Uni Basel have free access to all courses offered in any Bachelor or MSc-Program by the University. The University of Basel also offers relevant lectures and courses in transferable skills, most of which are open to all PhD students. Please use the course directory to search for relevant courses. Transferable skills courses (DE), many of which are offered through the Graduate Center of the University of Basel (GRACE), may have a separate enrolment procedure, which can be found be at the GRACE web site. Please note though that most of the GRACE offers are currently unable to comply with the enormous demand. Other courses can e.g. be found on the SSPH+ website where a large set of offers are constantly updated. Also consult the PPHS webpage and discuss with your supervisor about best options to tailor your courses to your needs. Learning Contract For courses outside the course directory of the university, students need to create a learning contract in MOnA: For students enrolled at the Faculty of Science, see point 1.2: https://philnat.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_ upload/philnat/Doctoral_studies_-_Guidelines_Version_03.2019.pdf. This contract needs to be signed by the student, the first supervisor and Pascal Mäser (responsible at Swiss TPH). For PhD students of the Medical Faculty the procedure for a learning contract is as follows: In case the course is listed in your learning agreement as part of your thesis proposal or progress report, you let your supervisor sign the learning contract (below far right). After the course, you send the signed learning contract and the course certificate to Moira Lux at phd-med@unibas.ch and she will organize the entry in MOnA. If the course is not listed in your learning agreement, you would need to update it first and send it to Moira Lux to get the changes approved by the PhD commission of the Medical Faculty. Non-Academic Internships There is also a strong trend and demand toward integrating a non-academic internship into the PhD track as a way of getting insights and possibly finding opportunities for non-academic careers after the PhD – indeed the ultimate track of many PhDs. SSPH+ has launched the SSPH+ Internship Program to assist you in finding and arranging such internships. Please discuss this option with your supervisor early on as it raises a range of questions you need to clarify front up, including the ideal timing, conflicts with your research and funding issues. Recipients of a GobalP3HS fellowship of SSPH+ are required to integrate an internship into their PhD (thus, the fellowship runs for up to 42 months). For all other PhD students, internships are optional. Depending on the host institution internships may be part-time and / or of different duration. Financial support PhD students at Swiss TPH typically fall into one of two categories: 48 – Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH
• Employment status with a formal contract to work at Swiss TPH or a related institution. Their remuneration follows the SNSF guidelines and rules, thus, these contracts include social security, which are directly deducted from the monthly salary payments. • PhD students under the “sandwich model”. Those are from abroad and are usually doing research relevant for and in collaboration with low- and middle income countries (LMIC), thus, they may stay abroad in the LMIC substantial time periods of the PhD studies, including field work periods. Those PhD students are contracted under a scholarship agreement (PhD regulation document). Those regulations cannot include social security enrolment nor are taxes deducted from such student scholarship. Contact the Student Coordinator, Christine Mensch, for administrative assistance. Swiss TPH does usually not accept unfunded PhD students; i.e., all PhD students must have some funds either from grants, fellowships or other external funders. In case of an external employer PhD students / supervisors must provide proof of guaranteed funding that is not less than the above mentioned two models, which ever may apply. In case contracts of external employers end prior to the end of the PhD, supervisor need to cover the remaining monthly allowance. Although Swiss TPH pursues fairness and equity in the salary structure, the level of the PhD student stipends are not fully under control of Swiss TPH but partly determined by the funder. One default is the stipend as defined by SNSF, mandatory for all SNSF project funded PhDs. The same stipends should be applied for all other funders unless the funding agency has set different (higher) stipends. For students from the global South, we have in particular County of Basel-Stadt and Swiss Embassy (ESKAS) scholarships which have pre-set financial rules which include stipends and other contributions (such as insurance, university fees etc.). As of 2019, Swiss TPH will also welcome GlobalP3HS fellowships from SSPH+, co-funded by the EU and the supervisors. The net amounts of those stipends are lower than SNSF salaries but these stipends are tax exempt and often include other support the usual PhD stipends do not cover. All those stipends are topped up to the fixed amount of CHF 2’350 per month. Taking all inherent differences into account (e.g. taxes, health and liability insurance, social security, semester fee, etc.). SNSF and other stipends do now provide rather similar amounts for the cost of living. The new regulation applies only to new incoming PhD students (since 2017). For those previously enrolled at Swiss TPH, changes are not required. In case of questions, discuss this with your supervisor. Feel free to contact the head of ET in case of uncertainties. Also make sure to wisely manage the monthly income as you have to pay all expenses, including housing and food yourself. Depending on the funder, you may also need to pay the health insurance plan, which is mandatory in Switzerland. A budget section outlining how the student will be paid and how additional research, travel and study costs will be covered must be part of the PhD proposal. Students and supervisors must make sure that the PhD related project is also fully funded (not just the stipend of the student). IMPORTANT: For international students with a scholarship, the taxation office of Basel will send a tax declaration form once a year. It is of utmost importance to inform the taxation office IMMEDIATELY by registered letter that you are a student with scholarship provided by the relevant sponsor to avoid having the scholarship funds taxed. You need to sign and return the tax papers with your scholarship notification letter and, if applicable, your student ID. Do not just ignore them, because then you might face serious problems with major financial consequences you will need to cover yourself! Duration of PhD studies and extra tasks Full-time PhD (or MD-PhD) students are expected to complete their thesis within 3 to 3.5 years, while part-time PhD students may extend the duration of their studies accordingly. For students conducting research abroad, a minimum residency in Basel of 4 months at the onset of studies and of 6 months at Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 49
the end for finalising the PhD is required. For non-academic internships taken during the PhD studies see above and discuss with your supervisors. Most internship hosts might require full- or part-time presence of at least 6 months. Those internships may also build the link between the end of the PhD studies and the post-PhD live. PhD students are expected to devote up to 20% of their time to support general tasks of Swiss TPH irrespective of the funding source. Please make sure to also volunteer in those tasks and to have your supervisor encouraging you in volunteering. If all Swiss TPH students equally contribute to those tasks, the contribution of a student will be far less than 20%. Student representatives (and supervisors) manage the assignment of such tasks: • • • • • •
Supervise during an exam (presence). Correct exams and evaluation forms. Assist with cocktail hours or coffee breaks. Assist with the organisation of conferences or workshops. Technical support (data cleaning and analysis, teaching, Master student’s support, etc.). Assist the administration team.
Time off and PhD-parental support In the case of an unanticipated extended leave from studies due to illness, health problems or other personal reasons, the student is asked to inform and consult with his / her supervisor. For more information please refer to the human resources guidelines available from the HR department. For PhD students who are parents, Uni Basel has special support in the get-on-track funding scheme (www.unibas.ch/en/Research/Financing/Doctorate/get-on-track.html) Portfolio and assessment All Swiss TPH PhD students maintain a portfolio documenting their learning progress. Throughout the PhD studies the student and the supervisor are expected to complete the required next steps of the PhD process. Regular meetings with the doctoral committee (at least annually) are accompanied by an evaluation based on the student’s self-assessment. The student’s self-assessment is an opportunity to reflect on the experiences that improved his / her ability to conduct research and to suggest how other competences could be acquired and how to further develop and improve personal, managerial and leadership skills. Based on this assessment a working plan for the following year is developped. The self-assessment includes, but is not limited to, the documentation of formal training, conferences attended, presentations given or papers published (see Appendices 2H and 2I for self-assessment guidelines and resources). The self-assessment form stays with the student. Students are responsible for organising the annual committee meetings. Each year, an annual meeting confirmation form (Appendix 2J) must be submitted to the Student Coordination to be entered in the student database. After the first year of doctoral studies (usually 12 months after registration), a formal decision is made regarding whether or not the PhD studies should continue.
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Upon completion of the PhD programme, the complete documentation of formal training, conferences attended, presentations given and papers published is sent to Christine Mensch. PhD thesis The final product of PhD study and research is a written thesis. Students of the Science Faculty have the choice of producing a monograph thesis or a publication-based thesis, whereas students of the Medical Faculty must write a publication-based thesis that includes at least three publications; the latter being the clear preference of Swiss TPH. In general, a publication-based thesis consists of 3-5 peer-reviewed articles and includes a general introduction, literature review, discussion section and conclusion. The student should be the first author of at least two publications and at least two manuscripts need to be published or accepted for publication at the time of thesis submission. The typical structure of a thesis is given in Appendix 2K. Theses are written in English. Publishing your manuscripts Swiss TPH PhD students usually publish at least three first-authored articles, thus, exceed the basic requirements of Uni Basel. Please discuss and plan the target journals very carefully with your supervisor. Open Access (OA) is becoming a default, and all journals – both traditional “subscription based” and true “Open Access“ journals offer this option. Also be aware that SNSF-funded projects must be published OA but SNSF also pays the publication fees (ACPs). However, SNSF does not pay the ACP in case you choose OA in a hybrid journal (i.e. subscription based, with OA as option). In those cases your supervisor needs another funding source. Please be aware that authors / supervisors (namely, the “corresponding author”) are responsible for the payment of the APC. Swiss TPH has no funding contribution to APC. However, many funders - not only SNSF - allow to charge the APC’s toward the projects. Also note that the University Basel has some special deals with many publishers. Given that all Swiss TPH “corresponding authors” include “University of Basel” as the second affiliation (after Swiss TPH) by default (see below) , we automatically qualify for those special rebates (often 15%, e.g. For all BMC journals). … but do not publish in predatory journals However, the move towards OA publishing has created thousands of fake journals – predatory journals. Make sure to never ever submit your work to any of these predatory journals. These journals violate all codes of scientific publishing and conduct. A website listing such journals (“negative list”) has not been continued. Please refer to the more reliable web site listing all high quality open access journals (“positive list”) : www.doaj.org. If your target open access journal is not on that list: be aware and clarify this in all details prior to submission. Also be aware if you get invited to co-author a paper: make sure your first / corresponding author does not choose such a predatory journal! It is your co-responsibility as a co-author to check this too! The Swiss TPH library and the Editorial Office of the International Journal of Public Health (IJPH) at Swiss TPH (Anke Berger) may assist you too in case of questions. We highly recommend to read this Commentary in IJPH of Anna Severin – a PhD student in Bern doing research on these topics – and Nicola Low. Authorship It is recommended to discuss (co-)authorships rules for your thesis papers and / or all papers where you may contribute apart from the ones of PhD thesis early on with your supervisor, particularly also if you are part of large consortia. Publications do matter in academia, thus, you should make sure to get credit where appropriate and to also promote your co-authors where appropriate, as you may indeed know best who made crucial scientific contributions to your work. Whereas rules about the qualification for authorship are usually clear and internationally agreed, the positioning in the list of co-authors needs clarification early on to prevent any misunderstandings or disappointments. In most cases it is rather clear who takes the primary lead in analysing, reviewing the literature, writing up the paper within a PhD Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 51
thesis – typical qualification as a 1st author. But occasionally this needs clarification as the major load may sometimes be equally shared by two, thus, one should discuss “equal first authorship” where both the first and the second are officially considered “first authors” (journals usually put a symbol to explain this). For those pursuing an academic career, a “first authorship” (or “equal first”) counts clearly stronger than a “normal” 2nd position. All other author positions are less clearly defined, thus, subject of early discussions and decisions. Very often, the second most involved contributor to a paper (apart from the senior leader – see below) may be listed as “second author”. In most cases (in the typical fields of science prevalent at Swiss TPH), the leading senior scientist (i.e. the one in the driving seat of a project, a thesis etc. who is though not doing all the analyses and manuscript developments but rather acts as the primary supervisor giving feedback, revising manuscripts, etc.) may opt for “last author” positions. However, this is not universally true. Indeed, you may work with partners whose academic systems value the “second author” much higher than the “last author” position (thus, offering “last authorship” may be misinterpreted as an offense). Moreover, in large collaborations, more than one researcher may possibly qualify as “last author” and your supervisor will know this. For example, some networks have adopted the (unwritten and not universally equally understood) “rule” to position the most senior leaders as the “second last” and “third last” authors whereas the more junior 2-3 key researchers may appear as 1st, 2nd and 3rd. In such large groups of co-authors, one may typically opt for positioning the key contributors at the above mentioned positions whereas all the others may appear in between, in alphabetical order. These are just some guiding principles, to be defined case-by-case with your supervisor. Remember that as the first author of a paper, it is your responsibility to make sure (with the supervisor) all authors who qualify have been considered (thus got the opportunity to contribute) and that no one is listed who does not qualify as author (but, e.g., as “acknowledgement”). All your co-authors must have read at least the final or pre-final version and given feedback and the “ok” to co-author your paper. This needs some time you have to include in your planning. IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SHARED AUTHORSHIPS: Collaborating in interdisciplinary research results usually in multi-author publications, including shared first authorship. This is highly welcomed and offers opportunities also to PhD students to co-author more publications than the “minimal essentials”. Please be aware that the “core part” of your PhD thesis cannot at the same time be the “core part” of another student’s PhD thesis. Given that most PhD students go far beyond the “minimal essential requirements”, we have never seen conflicts with this rule. In case of uncertainties, discuss it with your supervisor early on. Some subtleties also differ between faculty regulations: The PhD Regulation of the Medical Faculty requires three first-authored publications as the “core”. Those three publications can be claimed as “core part” by only one PhD student (i.e. no other co-author can claim any of these three “core” articles to be the main part of his / her own PhD thesis as well). The PhD Regulation of the Science Faculty refers to the same issue more generally with a reminder that if you do a “collaborative theses” (Gemeinschaftsarbeit), your own contribution must be well identifiable and circumscribed, and it must, by itself, fulfil the requirements of a PhD thesis. Affiliation of Swiss TPH authors Your PhD thesis will consist of several scientific articles, published in peer reviewed journals. All authors must always provide their affiliation. Swiss TPH researchers must by default provide two separate affiliations, namely the following two, in this order: 1. Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Basel, Switzerland 2. University of Basel, Basel Switzerland
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As an independent institute, associated with the University of Basel, this double affiliation is required and not negotiable. As leading author / PhD student you are responsible for providing correct affiliations, too. We do not add the Department to any of these two affiliations and most journals agree to skip this. Submitting the thesis Please read and study carefully the relevant PhD regulations: www.philnat.unibas.ch/de/forschung/promotionphd/ & https://medizin.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/medizin/Dokumente/Lehre/doctoral_degrees/PhD_Ordnung_2015.pdf For additional information, contact the responsible dean’s office, dekanat-philnat@unibas.ch (Science Faculty), phd-med@unibas.ch (Medical Faculty). Further it is mandatory to inform the Administration Office of Swiss TPH if you plan to finish the PhD studies. The thesis should represent original work on the part of the student. Plagiarism is a serious offence at Swiss TPH and the University of Basel. Please see Appendix 3B for a definition of plagiarism. Thesis evaluation Faculty of Science: https://philnat.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/philnat/Doctoral_studies_-_Guidelines_Version_03.2019.pdf Faculty of Medicine: www.medizin.unibas.ch/de/karriere/doctoral-degrees/phd-dr-sc-med/timeline/ Please make sure that the gradings are submitted IN TIME at the relevant faculty. Late submissions will not be accepted. Grades are given on a scale of 1 (worst) to 6 (best); half grades are possible. A minimum score of 4 is needed to pass. In cases where the primary supervisor is not a Group I Faculty member (or entitled as such), both the First and Second supervisor must sign the evaluation sheet. A positive evaluation ends with the following sentence: Ich (wir) beantrage(n) der Philosophisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Basel, die von XY vorgelegte Dissertation als xxx Arbeit (Note xx) anzuerkennen und XY zum Doktorexamen zuzulassen. Translation: I / we request the Faculty of Science to accept the thesis presented by XY as [good / excellent, etc.], with a mark of [4 - 6] and to admit the student for the oral doctoral exam. PhD defence Following the completion of the thesis, an oral exam is held. The student and the supervisor, in consultation with the PhD committee, arrange the date, time and location of the defence. In case of PhD defences at the Medical Faculty, the commission likes to delegate the Chair for the defence, thus, inform Moira Lux (phd-med@unibas.ch) at the earliest possible time once you start planning the defence. Details of the PhD degree completion process can be found on the homepage of the Faculty of Science or the Faculty of Medicine. Details of the defence must be communicated to the Dean’s Secretary at the
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Faculty of Science or Faculty of Medicine4 well in advance of the date to allow official invitations to be sent to the examiners and to prepare the necessary documentation. As soon as the date is set, students must immediately provide the details of the defence, including the date, time, location, title of thesis, supervisors, committee members and Chair to: 1. the Head of ET, 2. the ET PhD coordinator Christine Mensch, 3. the Head of the department of the PhD student, 4. the Director 5. the departmental support team contacts (Dagmar Batra (dagmar.batra@swisstph.ch) and Susy Gyoerffy (susi.gyoerffy@swisstph.ch)) The departmental support team person will be in charge of preparing the flyers to be featured on the boards and at meetings (dagmar.batra@swisstph.ch for EPH and mpi.order@swisstph.ch for MPI). It is the student’s responsibility to collect the required documents from the Dean’s Secretary one day before the defence takes place and (in case of Science Faculty) to hand them over to the Chair of the Examination Committee. In case of Medical Faculty the Dean’s office sends the material to the Chair directly. The defence can be public or closed, depending on the student’s preference. A closed defence includes a 10-minute oral presentation of the PhD project, followed by a 50-minute question and answer period. An open defence includes a 20-minute presentation, followed by a 40-50 minutes question-and-answer period. Questions are usually related to the thesis, but more general questions about the field of investigation are to be expected. The Chair of the Examination Committee is responsible for the organisation and the correct procedures of the thesis defence. Appendix 2A indicates which faculty members of Swiss TPH can serve as an examination Chair. At the defence, the following persons need to be present: The Chair, the First supervisor, the Second supervisor, and the external Expert listed on the PhD application form “Promotionsantrag” submitted to the Faculty of Science. If a PhD candidate and the supervisor see the need to setup a remote defence via skype with further external experts, the responsible person in the IT unit has to be informed 10 days before the defence. Covid-19: Please see https://intranet.swisstph.ch/en/coronavirus/teaching/
4 The Faculty of Science Dean’s office is located at Klingelbergstrasse 50. The Faculty of Medicine Dean’s office is located at Klingelbergstrasse 61.
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Grading The overall grade of the thesis is a weighted average, with 1/3 of the grade given for the oral exam and 2/3 for the written thesis. It is only at the last step of calculations where the final mark is rounded off to the nearest half mark. Marks range from 1 to 6, with 6 being the best and 4 being the minimum grade for a pass. Latin epithets corresponding to these grades are used: 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
rite (pass) bene (good) cum laude (with praise) magna cum laude (with great praise) summa cum laude (with the highest praise)
After the PhD defence Following the defence, the examiners will inform the student of her / his grade and the student will be asked to take an oath of academic integrity. It is customary to celebrate the defence with an Apéro or reception immediately afterwards. It is the responsibility of the fellow students in coordination with the Swiss TPH supervisor to organise these events. Swiss TPH support staff does not organise such events nor does the Swiss TPH Directorate or ET finance these events. The supervisor is responsible to inform the Student Administration about the mark so that the PhD tracking can be completed. De-register from the University and de-register from the relevant community if you are leaving Switzerland to avoid future visa problems when entering the SCHENGEN area. The supervisor is responsible to inform the Student Administration about the mark so that the PhD tracking can be completed. Post PhD actions 1. Make final corrections to the thesis and arrange for printing according to the „Submission Regulations for Final Copies of Doctoral Dissertations“ of the University of Basel (https://philnat. unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/philnat/3_Forschung/Pflichtexemplare_neue_Ordnung_E.pdf). PLEASE NOTE: Although University of Basel states that the submission of the final corrected PhD thesis may take up to 2 years after the defence, we highly recommend to finish this step within a few weeks. Please make this step prior to departure / move into the post-doc live. This step is required to use the title “PhD”, thus, do not delay the submissions. Contact the library (library@swisstph.ch) for detailed instructions and full support. It is mandatory to print: • three copies of the dissertation (“Pflichtexemplare”) on archivable paper for the Dean’s Office and • two copies (booklets, more colourful) for the library (located at Socinstrasse 59, 1st floor) • Print additional copies to distribute to home institutions, colleagues and other interested parties. Handover the raw and clean datasets including the data documentation, analysis R scripts or STATA do-files of reproduce results and other relevant documents to your Supervisor. Note: All produced datasets, documentations, analyses protocols and queries belong to Swiss TPH. • The hard copies must be turned in within two years after the PhD defence, otherwise the PhD defence may be declared void. In special circumstances, students must ask for an extension in writing, providing reasons for the delay.
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2. Handover the raw and clean datasets including the data documentation, analysis R scripts or STATA do-files of reproduce results and other relevant documents to your Supervisor. Note: All produced datasets, documentations, analyses protocols and queries belong to Swiss TPH. 3. Provide copies of the datasets for the Swiss TPH Data Repository. The data repository stores datasets collected by students and staff and allows them to be potentially re-used for further studies. Information about each study is stored in a searchable data-base. If the data is requested, permission is then sought from the Supervisor. Sufficient information for the search terms and a brief description of the study should be provided. Exceptions are allowed if ethics agreements (Appendix 3) or contracts prohibit the storage of databases (contact regina. ducret@swisstph.ch and amanda.ross@swisstph.ch). 4. Archive all physical material (completed questionnaires, signed consent forms, field-work material, project manual, etc.) according to the Swiss TPH archiving regulations (contact marco. waser@swisstph.ch). 5. Please send a copy of your final doctoral degree to Christine Mensch. Transition into post-doc Please discuss your transition from PhD into the next phase of your career early on with the supervisor (or feel free to approach the Head of ET). The PhD rarely ends with the defence but may typically need a few more months to finish up. Occasionally, there are some extra funds available to finish up for 2-3 months some additional papers (e.g. check out the PPHS web site). However, you should define the “end of PhD period” and plan the next phase early on. If you attempt to pursue an academic path, the next phase will be your time as a post-doc (defined as up to six years after the PhD). As a general rule, it is highly recommended to do your post-doc elsewhere. Continuing the post-doc where one does the PhD may penalize your academic track towards assistant or “Förderprofessor” positions given that “mobility” is seen as an asset of an academic career.
Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Swiss TPH The 1-year MD studies can also be done at Swiss TPH provided the supervisor of the MD thesis has an academic position at Swiss TPH. The “Dr. med.” (MD) degree requires one year of scientific activity. To register as a doctoral student, a Master degree in Medicine is required. The thesis can only be submitted one year after obtaining the Master degree and after successfully completing the federal “Staatsexamen”. Work on the Dr. med. thesis can begin during the Master programme and can be a continuation of scientific work performed for the Master thesis. Details are available at the „Ordnung für den Erwerb der Doktorwürde „Dr. med.“ and the Wegleitung. The student must be registered for at least two consecutive semesters as a doctoral student at the University of Basel. A Dr. med. thesis can only be led (Thesis Leader - “Dissertationsleitung”) by one with an academic degree, such as a PD or a Professor, of the Faculty of Medicine. Please see the faculty affiliation list in Appendix 2A. Academically qualified staff from other faculties can be involved in thesis supervision as “Dissertationsbertreuer/in” and must be mentioned in the thesis, though it is the Thesis Leader “Dissertationsleiter” who will evaluate the final thesis. Though the MD is often a default in careers of physicians, the MD alone does not qualify for a scientific career. As mentioned above, those interested in academic tracks may profit from the MD-PhD.
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Other opportunities Contribute to Young Researcher Editorials A primary objective of the PhD is the publication of peer-reviewed research papers. A Swiss TPH PhD student initiated a discussion about the lack of opportunities for PhD students to debate and express their views about public health sciences more broadly. This resulted in a new educational initiative of the International Journal of Public Health (IJPH) of SSPH+: The Young Researchers Editorials (YRE). It was launched in September 2017 to strengthen the academic voice of students in the public health sciences. YRE is an independent editorial board of SSPH+ PhD students. They acquire, review and publish Editorials written and submitted by PhD students from all over the world. As all IJPH Editorials, these are citable open access publications. Please note that YRE is not the place to publish parts of your thesis. Editorials may refer to public health topics or papers published in IJPH or in any other journal or the news. It may also address issues of being a PhD student in public health sciences. Pursuing a PhD in Africa Students interested in PhD studies in Africa may consider the highly competitive and successful African CARTA PhD program. CARTA provides full-term fellowships to do a PhD at one of the CARTA Universities (only for those who have a contract as an employee at the respective university). CARTA also offers courses for its students, which are also open for PhD students from elsewhere. Swiss TPH chairs the Non-African Partners of the CARTA network (Nino Künzli) and contributes to some of its courses. For questions please contact barbara.buerkin@swisstph.ch Part-time jobs during PhD studies Some PhD students work part-time to make some extra income. As this may compete with the timely advancement of the PhD, it is important to discuss this and agree with the supervisor. For foreign students, working permissions may be restricted, e.g. those foreign students with Cantonal or Federal fellowships are usually allowed to work up to 20% (15 hours per week) although exceptions may apply. Some may find job opportunities within Swiss TPH. In those cases, salaries need to be clarified with the supervisor of the related job. Depending on the duration of the work and the tasks (job description), PhD students may be hired on an hourly basis with a flat hourly salary or on some fixed contract (e.g. as 20% research assistant). Please note that the contribution of up to 20% of the PhD time to general needs of Swiss TPH does not count as “job” nor is it paid but considered a “volunteering” contribution to the institution. Working though as a “project assistant” on studies or projects (that are not led by your PhD supervisor) does not qualify as “volunteering institutional contribution” but as a paid part-time job. In case of uncertainties discuss it with your supervisor or the Head of ET.
Guidelines for Doctoral Studies at Swiss TPH – 57
International Students Master Students International students wishing to pursue Master level studies at the Swiss TPH must complete the online Master degree application forms process (www.unibas.ch/en). The application AND authenticated copies of degrees and transcripts must be uploaded on the application platform of the University of Basel. Documents sent by post and scanned copies sent via e-mail will not be accepted. A letter of motivation explaining what you plan to study and why you wish to do your Master studies at Swiss TPH is also required. The application will be reviewed by the University of Basel and Swiss TPH and assessed according to the admission criteria. If you are accepted into one of our Master programmes, you will be notified by the University of Basel or Swiss TPH and receive an admission letter from the University. This admission letter is required to apply for a residence permit or a visa. See the section below on general information: How to get a visa. Please bring your original application documents (copies of degrees and transcripts) with you. You have to submit them to the University once you are here. Once you are accepted into the Master programme, you should start seeking suitable accommodation, as it is quite difficult to find housing on short notice. You should also ensure that your insurance coverage is adequate and up-to-date, as health insurance is mandatory in Switzerland. Insurance and travel arrangements to Basel are the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responsibility.
58 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; General information
PhD Students Students interested in pursuing PhD studies at Swiss TPH must send a motivation letter (including declaration of main research fields of interest) and updated CV (all in English) to the Student Administrator (Christine Mensch) who will make sure all potential supervisors at Swiss TPH will be informed. If a Swiss TPH researcher agreed to possibly supervise your PhD, you will be contacted by Swiss TPH. At this point, you will be asked to complete the PhD application forms available on the University of Basel homepage (www.unibas.ch/en). Send the completed forms to the Student coordinator at Swiss TPH (not the University). Swiss TPH will pass on the information to the University for review and assessment. Admission to the PhD programme is contingent on acceptance from the University of Basel. If the University accepts your application, you will get an admission letter from the University. In most cases, the Swiss TPH will assist students requiring a visa or residence permit and will also help arrange accommodation (Appendix 3D), insurance and travel. Sometimes, however, this is not possible and students must apply for a visa on their own. Please see the following section on general information: How to get a visa.
General Information How to get a visa For students from countries requiring a visa for entry into Switzerland, you have to apply for the visa at the Swiss embassy in your country. This must be done well in advance, as it will take at least 6-8 weeks for the visa to be issued. Only apply for a visa once you have received the ok from the student administration and your letter of admission from the University of Basel. More information can be found on: www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home.html. All foreign students (EU or non-EU countries) need to obtain a residence permit. It is your responsibility to check with the Migration Office Basel-Stadt “Migrationsamt Basel” or Migration Office Basel-Land “Migrationsamt Basel-Land”. What you need to get a visa or a residence permit: 1. A Letter of Admission from the Study Secretariat of the University of Basel (or for PhD-Students, a confirmation from the Swiss TPH Student Administration). 2. A written application indicating the reason for travel, duration of stay (length of your whole stay for study purposes), degree you will study, your plans for the future (work). 3. Curriculum vitae. 4. Evidence of sufficient financial resources to live in Switzerland. This usually involves providing proof that a solvent person will cover all the living expenses of the student, or providing a statement of account, a grant, or – for PhD-students – the contract of employment. 5. Written declaration that you will leave Switzerland after completion of your studies. After registering at the University of Basel, students must present in person at the Migration Office in Basel (Spiegelgasse 6) to get a biometric residence permit.
General information – 59
After having arrived in Basel, be prepared to show the following documents at the relevant migration office/community: 1. Your passport (with visa, if required). 2. Valid students ID-card (“Legi”) of the University of Basel. 3. Proof of financial means. 4. Documents indicating your civil status, as appropriate (marriage certificate, divorce decree, family register, etc.). 5. Copy of rental agreement. The residence permit is only valid for one year. The immigration office will send out instructions for renewal. Students are responsible to inform ET or HR about expiry of their permit. How to get a bank account (for foreign / scholarship PhD students) To open a private bank account, please contact: UBS, Türkheimerstrasse, Ahornhof, 4055 Basel Tel. 061 306 73 73; opening hours: 09:00–12:00 and 13:30–16:00 Please note that it is mandatory for all scholarship recipients to open a bank account so that the stipend can be transferred to the relevant accounts starting from the second month onwards. Cash payments will only be done in the first month. The following documents have to be presented: 1. Identification paper (passport). 2. Copy of regulation with Swiss TPH 3. Swiss permit or document “Ermächtigung” (which was issued by our migration office for entering Switzerland) which shows the duration of the stay in Switzerland After receipt of the first scholarship, UBS will block 200 CHF for safety reasons. Of course this amount will be reimbursed (some tax fees will be deducted) when leaving Switzerland. Scholarship holders are obliged to inform ET (christine.mensch@swisstph.ch) immediately about the bank account details.
60 – General information
Students’ Rights and Obligations Students at the University of Basel and the Swiss TPH have rights as well as obligations. Students have the right to: • Be treated in a respectful and responsible way by the supervisor and all staff members • Regular supervision • Adequate representation in the different bodies of Swiss TPH • Working space – for PhD students this means lab and / or office space; for MSc-students, working space is available in the library • Adequate equipment and supplies for work • Computer access Students are obliged to: • Comply with generally accepted rules of scientific and personal conduct • Respect the rules and regulations of Swiss TPH at all times • Be aware of security guidelines, both in offices and in the lab; every student should be introduced to the guidelines by his / her supervisor, in association with the Swiss TPH Security Officer • Participate in the general running of their lab / department • Participate in the biannual student meetings (May and Oct.) • Support fellow students • Actively participate in Swiss TPH academic life, including attending weekly seminars, presentations, and student meetings. • Maintain adequate health and travel insurance during their time in Basel • Contribute to the Swiss TPH community by assisting new students or visitors, supervising exams, carrying out other Swiss TPH related tasks when requested (up to 20% of full-time studies) • International students must inform the Migration Office in Basel or relevant community about their departure date (to avoid taxation). Bring a copy of this information to ET • Before leaving the Institute, students must provide copies of the data sets (along with the documentation) and the programming codes they have used to their supervisor and the Swiss TPH data repository • Clear their bank accounts after finishing their studies and before leaving Switzerland • Read all e-mails that are sent to their Swiss TPH account • Terminate their mobile contracts after finishing their studies and before leaving Switzerland
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Resolution of conflicts The “Studentische Körperschaft der Universität Basel” (SKUBA) is the official body representing the interests of students at university level. In case of problems or conflicts between the student and staff of Swiss TPH (his / her Supervisor, other staff, fellow students) or in case of serious personal problems, students are advised to consult the following people (in this order): 1. Supervisor 2. Head of Department 3. Head of ET (Nino Künzli) 4. Director of Swiss TPH 5. Dean of the Faculty of Science In case of conflict there are also three ombudspersons available at the Institute: Professor Christian Lengeler (EPH), Professor Elisabeth Zemp Stutz (EPH), and Professor Till Voss (MPI). In cases of serious student misconduct, the same people should consulted. For the most serious cases, the University discipline commission (Disziplinarkommission) will be consulted. Sexual harassment Sexual harassment is illegal according to Article 4 of the Swiss Equality Law (GIG) of 24 March 1995. That law prohibits any harassing behaviour of a sexual nature or other behaviours of sexual orientation which compromises the dignity of men and women in the workplace. Sexual harassment consists of any action with a sexual reference which is undesired by one party, and may range from offensive and distressing observations, sexist remarks, demonstration or display of pornographic material, undesired bodily contact and sexual advances. Sexual harassment is not tolerated within the Swiss TPH and individuals found guilty of harassment shall face sanctions, including exclusion from the Swiss TPH and the University of Basel, and in serious cases legal measures will be taken. The complaintant shall not suffer any disadvantages as a result of making such a case known. The Institute expects all employees and students to respect the personal limits claimed by their colleagues for interpersonal contact. Students who feel sexually harassed are encouraged to inform Professor Elisabeth Zemp Stutz or Professor Christian Lengeler (both EPH). Swiss TPH students are expected to attend: • Team / student meetings: All units and departments organise regular meetings. Master and PhD students are required to take part in the meetings of their particular unit and department. • EPH meetings: Take place on Mondays at 10:00. This meeting is an opportunity to discuss administrative matters, give departmental updates, introduce new staff members and ensure that everyone knows what is happening in the department and at Swiss TPH. • Student meetings (EPH only): Take place on Mondays from 11:00-12:00. This meeting is organised by one or two students who take turns arranging a programme according to proposed topics and chair the meetings. It is intended to provide a forum for students to present their work (either finished or in progress) to their peers, gain presentation experience, discuss specific topics of interest, invite guest speakers, etc. One or more academic staff members attend each session, but the students run the meetings. It is compulsory for all students to present at least once in this meeting during their studies (MSc or PhD).
62 – General information
• MPI meetings: Taking place on Thursdays, is intended to ensure that departmental staff and students are kept informed of current issues of the department, Swiss TPH and in the field of MPI. • MPI and EPH research seminars: This departmental seminar series takes place every Thursday. Sessions are dedicated to either a MPI- or EPH-relevant research topic. The research seminars serve as a platform for students and staff to share and discuss the results of their on-going research projects. Local, national or international senior scientists are also invited to present their work. These seminars are mandatory for EPH and MPI PhD students. Intellectual Property (IP) rights and data protection Working on a thesis as an MSc or PhD student may result in discoveries and inventions. Of note, discoveries or inventions – whether or not patentable – may include computer software, research data (e.g., novel diagnostic, drug or vaccine targets) or research tools, and all proprietary information associated with any of these items. Swiss TPH is a co-owner of discoveries and inventions made by MSc or PhD students during their work at Swiss TPH or while under supervision by Swiss TPH employees. The level of IP rights of the student depends on various issues, including the funder of the project and / or the supervisor, the rules established among research partners of networks the thesis may belong to, or the level of independence of the student work. With regard to the latter, Swiss TPH theses are often based on on-going projects and partly existing data where students may add a component or further analyse existing data. Whereas students have copyrights and co-authorship rights for their publications as generally defined in science, IP rights may be more restricted in such cases. Instead, in cases where the student generates genuinely new inventions entirely independent of pre-existing data or resources of Swiss TPH supervisors, IP rights of the student may be more substantial, though shared with Swiss TPH (for a brief overview of useful guidelines, the student is encouraged to consult the following website posted by the University of Toronto. Thus far, IP rights have never been a source of conflict in the long history of Swiss TPH research. However, if you work on a specific domain where you anticipate IP rights to become a potentially conflicting issue, we recommend reading the aforementioned guidelines and discussing the issue early on with your direct supervisor. In such rare cases, details may be clarified in advance and become subject of special agreements. The ownership of research data generated as part of the thesis need to be clarified with the supervisor. In the majority of Swiss TPH theses, data used in the research may originate at least in part not only from the work done by the student but generated in the framework of larger projects. All rules of data ownership, data use and publication of such projects may thus apply, including the request to delete data on any private (non-Swiss TPH) hardware at the end of the theses work. Before using such data for further research beyond the thesis, supervisors and / or the principal investigators of the projects need to be informed to establish a new agreement. Data protection Please remember that data used for research must in all cases, and with no exception, be fully anonymous. If you collect or use data of subjects, files that contain personal identifiers (e.g., name) must be safely stored and protected. Such personal information must be separated from the files used for the data analyses, using an anonymous ID number for the linkage to the full data, if needed. You should under no circumstances keep such personal files on your computer. Files containing names of subjects should never be sent by e-mail or other media.
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Student Representative’s Roles and Responsibilities Each research department has a student representative (PhD and Master) that is either: chosen by their peers, chosen by the Swiss TPH departments or a volunteer. Student Representatives (SR) are a critical component of effective communication between students, the department of Education and Training as the leading department of student affairs, the Institute administration, their departments, and the directorate. The main focus for SRs is academic representation. They represent the interests of the student body. In this function they are the primary contact for the students and for institutional bodies with respect to student's issues. The Student Representative Committee (SRC) at Swiss TPH comprises six to seven students: 4 PhD Student Representatives (EPH, MPI, SCIH, MedDia, MedRes) and 2-3 Master Student Representatives (EPH, MPI, SCIH, MedDia, MedRes). The SRC reports to the Head of the Department of Education and Training (ET). The SRC is involved in the National Union of Students (NUS), the top representative body of all tertiary students in Switzerland that works to protect the rights of all students. This could be achieved via connection with avuba “Assistierendenvereinigung der Universität Basel”, the assistants association of the University of Basel. Information on NUS activities can be accessed via http://vss-unes.ch. Master SR: The 2-3 Master SRs represent all the students in the Infection Biology Master course and the Epidemiology Master Course. At least one MSR is elected from each. Responsibilities of Master SRs: 1. Be the central contact point for students, PhD representatives and Institute faculty / directorate / administration and ensure optimal flow of information 2. Promote student communication and team spirit in the master's class, e.g., by organizing social events 3. Welcome the next master student class; introduce them into the course and Institute 4. Promote scientific and social exchange with master students from other institutions and other master courses, e.g., African studies, Biozentrum, by liaising with their respective MSR (information about lecture series, etc.) The MSR will work independently but in close collaboration with the PhD student representatives. Every year, 2-3 MSRs are elected by their peers. They will be introduced into their role and responsibilities by the previous year's MSR. PhD SRs: 2 PhD SRs will represent the students from EPH, SCIH, MED and two PhD SRs will represent the students from MPI. Ask fellow students or your supervisor for the name of your current PhD SR. PhD SR are responsible for organising student meetings, the coordination of the “volunteer” work of students and the management of the office workspaces of PhD students in their department. They should
64 – General information
be contacted by the Supervisor before arrival of new students as workspace is limited at Swiss TPH and must be carefully planned and allocated. Please let your PhD SR know when you leave the Institute for an extended period of time, e.g., for fieldwork, or when you finish your studies. Do not hesitate to contact the PhD SR to discuss any questions, concerns or suggestions. Responsibilities of PhD SRs 1. Establish yourself as a central point for information and guidance: The SRs are the contacts for all students in their department on administrative and study related issues. This might include problems related to campus life, their supervisors, other students, colleagues in their offices, etc. The role of the PhD SR is to suggest, develop and implement solutions to these problems, acting as a moderator if the situation requires. This does not include being involved with the students’ personal problems, academic difficulties and individual student allegations of unfair or inappropriate treatment. If a student comes to you with such a problem, recognise that they have identified you as a source of information and encourage / support them to talk to their direct unit superior or to come to the Students’ Union Advice Centre. The the Advice Centre staff can provide support and guidance on academic, international and personal issues. Confidentiality is imperative when dealing with student issues. If the SR would like to discuss a student’s situation with a third person, they must first obtain consent from the student beforehand. 2. Provide feedback to the student community from high-level meetings: Briefings from meetings (e.g., annual retreat Swiss TPH) should not be done only with a written summary sent by e-mail. The SRs must create an atmosphere for students to ask questions and comment freely. To avoid increasing student workloads, these meetings should take place, as far as possible, during the time allocated for the weekly students' meeting. If not possible we recommend scheduling a new meeting in addition to send a written summary by e-mail to all the PhD students. It is important to remember that the role of SR does not end with attending high-level meetings but must be combined with strong feedback to the student community both, based in Basel and in the field. 3. Organize work places for PhD students: An essential task of the SR is to organise the working spaces for the students. This is a very challenging task, especially in autumn when many external students are coming for course work. Seating places for PhD students are located in Eulerstrasse 54 / 83 and Socinstrasse 55 / 59. It is very important to keep regular contact with the room management coordinators to organize the work spaces for all PhD students and to maintain up-to-date information every trimester. –– EPH, SCIH, MedDia and MedRes SRs coordinate Eulerstrasse 54 / 83 –– MPI SRs coordinate the MPI student rooms 0n the 2nd and 3rd floors of Socinstrasse 55 and keep in contact with various group leaders that have available work spaces in their labs at Socinstrasse 55 and 53A –– Nora Bauer coordinates the space of EPH staff (not PhD students), including the 3rd floor in Socinstrasse 57 which occasionally may offer space to PhD students. 4. Welcoming new PhD students: A warm, friendly welcome is always a good start in a new environment. It is very important to keep regular contact with Christine Mensch, ET
General information – 65
Department, to be aware of the new arrivals and properly organise the working spaces for all PhD students. The SR should welcome the new students at the Swiss TPH, once they have received the welcoming package and instructions from Christine Mensch. Then the SR will show the new students their offices and explain some rules and information about things like printers, kitchen usage, internet and student volunteer work. Please make sure that new students have the Students Handbook, which is full of important guidelines and helpful hints. The introduction of new students to the all relevant people in the same building is usually done by the student’s direct supervisor or their group colleagues and is not the responsibility of the SR. However, this responsibility can be delegated to the SR in particular situations (e.g., supervisor not present). All new staff (including PhD students) are also invited by HR to Welcome Days, usually offered 2-3 times per year. 5. Relay key messages from the administration to the student body: Find volunteers! Various project leaders and colleagues might be looking for volunteers for specific tasks. Those requests, mainly via e-mail, include: –– Supervise exams (presence) –– Correct exams and evaluation forms –– Assist with cocktail hours or coffee breaks –– Assist with the organisation of conferences or workshops –– Technical support (data cleaning and analysis, teaching, Master student's support, etc.) –– Assist the administration team 6. Keep the minutes writer schedule updated (exclusively for EPH): Every Monday the EPH plenary meeting takes place at 10:00. As many members of the Institute are travelling for working purposes or absent for other reasons, a PhD student summarizes the announcements in a written form. Dagmar Batra is informed the week before by the SR about who will write the minutes. The minutes’ writer must submit the minutes not later than Tuesday (of the same week) and should send them via e-mail to dagmar.batra@swisstph.ch. 7. Facilitate events to bring students together! Within a big institution such as Swiss TPH it is challenging to know everyone. Bringing together all students of the Institute during free time, evening events or excursions should be organized to overcome this challenge. Usually, PhD students take the initiative themselves to plan such events. The role of the SR is to encourage and support the organization of these activities. SRs may ask for financial support from the Head of ET department if needed. Examples for those activities are: –– Day trip to Geneva to visit Cern (Jan. 2011, Jun. 2016) –– Student "end of the year” party (Christmas), and beginning Fall semester party 8. Liaising with other SRs and institutional leaders for support and ideas: It is fundamental to keep in regular contact with the SRC to exchange information and collaborate on creating solutions for several issues arising in the groups. The SR organizes at least two sessions per year with the Head of ET (see below). If necessary, short sessions with other institutional leaders (Director and department heads) may be initiated to provide a channel for dialogue and discussion among students and direct leaders.
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9. Represent fellow students at the following meetings: • SR Meeting with Head of ET Purpose: Discuss state of work, needs, strategies or upcoming events to get feedback and support and decide on next steps. SR’s Role: Communicate all major issues / concerns / needs with department head, who will bring issues to Directorate Board if needed. Take notes of the issues raised and write the decision minutes in a timely fashion to report back to students. In attendance: SR, Head of ET; others if agreed upon in advance. When: SR initiate scheduling at least twice a year (usually prior to a new semesters). • Meetings with Research Commission (RC) Purpose: Discuss reviews of student's PhD proposals and strategic issues related to academic requirements of the programmes. SR’s Role: Solicit and read agenda items (summary of proposals to be submitted and their reviews). Speak on behalf of the students to explain their issues / concerns and / or suggest ideas for improvement. In Attendance: SR and RC members. When: 3–4 times per year • Meetings with the department project leaders (exclusive for EPH) Purpose: Discuss strategic, high-level issues with the departmental project leaders. SR’s role: Solicit and submit agenda items. Speak on behalf of the students to explain their issues / concerns and / or suggest ideas for improvement. In attendance: SR and project leaders When: Every first Monday of a month • Meeting with senior management (Swiss TPH retreat) Purpose: Discuss strategic, high-level issues with the Institute Senior managers. SR’s role: Solicit and participate in agenda activities. The content of the retreat is drafted in advance during pre-meetings. Speak on behalf of the students to explain their issues / concerns and / or suggest ideas for improvement. In attendance: SR and senior managers When: Schedule developed annually. Usually takes place in the Spring, over two-days, and upon invitation from the Director. Selection Process of SR For a new calendar year, all enrolled students are invited to volunteer as SRC candidates, 6-7 students (4 PhD level and 2-3 MSc level) in total to represent all Swiss TPH students. Nominations will be called for by the acting SRC and take place after the start of the Fall semester. • Institute-wide PhD student meetings Purpose: Forum for student body to present any broad issues / concerns / feedback to the SR and via SR to Institute administrators, and support the administration in conveying their concerns to the student body.
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SR’s role: Gather feedback from students to identify any broad issues / concerns / needs. Take notes of the issues raised and write the meeting minutes in a timely fashion to report back to students and the managing directors on relevant issues. In attendance: Student Representatives, invited students, and invited guests When: Schedule drafted twice a year • Meetings with research commission (RC) Purpose: Discuss reviews of student's PhD proposals and strategic issues related to academic requirements of the programmes. SR’s role: Solicit and read agenda items (summarize proposals to be submitted and their reviews). Speak on behalf of the students to explain their issues / concerns and / or suggest ideas for improvement. In attendance: SR and RC members When: 3–4 times per year • Meetings with the department project leaders (exclusive for EPH) Purpose: Discuss strategic, high-level issues with the departmental project leaders. SR’s role: Solicit and submit agenda items. Speak on behalf of the students to explain their issues / concerns and / or suggest ideas for improvement. In attendance: SR and Project leaders When: Every first Monday of a month • Meetings with senior management (Swiss TPH retreat) Purpose: Discuss strategic, high-level issues with the Institute senior managers. SR’s role: Solicit and participate in agenda activities. The content of the retreat is formulated in advance within pre-meetings. Speak on behalf of students to explain their issues / concerns and / or suggest ideas for improvement. In attendance: SR and senior managers When: Schedule developed annually. Usually takes place in Spring, over two days, and upon invitation rom the Director
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Criteria for SRs • Good communication and interpersonal skills • Organisational and planning skills • Reasoning and problem-solving skills • Ability to negotiate, make constructive suggestions and find appropriate solutions • Commitment to: –– participate in meetings scheduled over 12 months –– work with other students, administrators and project leaders to implement initiatives and solutions –– create connections by planning events to enhance student communication –– devote about 20 hours a month to the SR role Why become an SR? SRs ensures communication and collaboration between students and institutional bodies. In this role, you are involved in various institutional decisions and meetings. The role enables SRs to develop and / or strengthen leadership skills, and connect with various units and departments and their leaders. The responsibility of assisting student peers in having their voice heards, knowing about and contributing to strategic decisions is of mutual benefit for both, students and SRs.
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Overview of Courses offered by Swiss TPH www.vorlesungsverzeichnis.unibas.ch/en/home Registering for Courses All Master and PhD students of the University of Basel must register for every semester (even if they are not spending the semester in Switzerland) and register for all courses online via www.unibas.ch/ en/Studies/My-Studies/Course-Registration.html within the first four weeks (please see the relevant deadlines).
Courses University of Basel courses that are offered under the lead of Swiss TPH are open to all students registered at the University of Basel. Each course can be found by entering the course title under the following link: www.vorlesungsverzeichnis.unibas.ch/en/home. Course descriptions include information about the location, dates and times, content and number of ECTS credit points associated with the course. All lectures are held in English. The lecture location may change on short notice. If so, the lecturer will notify you. On the following pages, there is an overview of all the lectures, as well as the relevant timetables. Students may register to other courses offered by University of Basel. Please clarify your plans with the supervisor.
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Specialised Master in Infection Biology Specialised Master in Infection Addendum Master in Infection Biology Biology
Mandatory
Lecture
2019/2020 Semester
CP
Responsible
Biostatistics (lecture)
AS
2
MKAI
Concepts in Molecular Epidemiology
AS1
2
SGA
Drug Discovery and Development for Parasitic Diseases
AS1
2
JKE
Evolution of host-parasite interactions (will not take place in AS 19)
AS1
2
EBERT
Immunology of Infection
AS1
2
CDA/DPO
Interdisciplinary Research in Epidemiology and Infection Biology
AS2
1
UTJ/JKE
Introduction to Bioinformatics
AS1
2
PAM/BDA
Molecular Infection Biology
AS1
2
TVO/PAM/SGA
Topics in Host-Pathogen Interactions
SS
2
TVO/SGA
Transferable skills
AS1
1
TVO/PAM
TOTAL Advanced Immunology of Infection
SS
2
CDA
Exercise: Immunology of Infection
AS1
2
CDA
SS
2
JZI/NAC
AS/SS
1
UTJ
Epidemiological concepts
AS
3
CHL
Epidemiological methods
AS
4
DMA
Essentials in drug development and clinical trials
SS
2
CHB
Exercise: Interdisciplinary research in epidemiology and infection biology
AS
1
UTJ/JKE
Key issues in public and international health
AS
2
PSN
Malaria epidemiology and control
SS
2
TSM
Mathematical modelling of infectious diseases
SS
2
MPE/NAC
Medical parasitology and neglected tropical diseases (lecture)
AS
2
PEO
Medical entomology
SS
2
PMR
Qualitative and mixed methods
AS
2
CPF
Techniques in Molecular Parasitology; Lab Training for MSc Students
AS1
4
TVO
Biostatistics (exercise)
AS1
1
MKAI
Advanced one health methods Advances in infection biology, epidemiology and global public health
Optional
18
TOTAL
34
Additional Lectures from other fields within the University of Basel in agreement with the supervisor/Swiss TPH AND all lectures offered by Swiss TPH (also lectures from Master in Epidemiology). Options AS: autumn semester / CP: credit points / SS: spring semester
16.09.2019
General information â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 71
Specialised Master in Epidemiology Specialised Master in Epidemiology Addendum Master in Epidemiology Module a)
MANDATORY COURSES
Module b)
Module c)
Module d)
OPTIONAL COURSES
Module e)
Additional Options
Lecture Foundations in epidemiology Epidemiological concepts Epidemiological methods Chronic diseases epidemiology Environmental epidemiology Qualitative and mixed methods Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care GIS in health and exposure sciences Biostatistics and computing Biostatistics (lecture) Biostatistics (exercise) Statistical modelling Data analysis in epidemiology Demography Statistical methods in trial design Research Data Management Global public health Public health in light of the sustainable development goals Public health across the life course Adv. in infection biology, epidemiology and global public health Key issues in public and international health Interdisciplinary research in epidemiology and infection biology Health systems Health financing and economic evaluation
2020/2021 Semester
CP
Responsible
AS1 AS1 AS1 AS1 AS1 SS1 SS1
3 4 1 1 2 2 2
CHL DMA NCP MRO MES XBC DVI/CDE
AS1 AS1 AS1 SS1 SS1 SS1 SS1
2 1 3 3 2 2 2
MKAI MKAI PVO ARO TFU/TSM GLA MAH
AS1 AS1 AS/SS AS1 AS AS1 SS1
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 40
NKU JDR MTA/UTJ PSN UTJ KWY PHA
SUBTOTAL Transferable skills and competences (5 CP to choose, incl. the two compulsory courses) Good scientific conduct in health sciences SS1 1 CHL Application to an ethics committee SS1 1 CHB Scientific writing SS1 2 BRA Project management SS 2 AHO Effective presentation skils SS 1 MWI Meet the professionals SS 1 CHL SUBTOTAL 8 Advances in epidemiology, statistics and public health: students must choose 15 CP Mathematical modelling of infectious diseases SS 2 MPE/NAC Exercise: Interdisciplinary research in epidemiology and infection biology AS 1 UTJ Introduction to One Health AS 3 JZI Advanced one health methods SS 2 JZI/NAC Current ecological and health issues in Africa AS 2 UTJ Essentials in drug development and clinical trials SS 2 CHB Drug discovery and development for parasitic diseases AS 2 JKE Malaria epidemiology and control SS 2 TSM Medical parasitology and neglected tropical diseases (lecture) AS 2 PEO Medical parasitology and neglected tropical diseases (exercise) AS 2 PEO Bayesian biostatistics and exercises SS 5 PVO Biostatistics (Journal Club) AS/SS 1 PVO Programming in STATA SS 1 JHA Medical entomology SS 2 PMR Health impact assessment SS 2 ETH ZH Programme evaluation (starting SS 2019) SS 1 MAH Climate change and health SS 1 GCI Advanced systematic reviews AS/SS 4 XBC Introduction to R for epidemiological data analysis SS 1 JHA (Current topics in epidemiology) not available for MSc IB und Epi AS/SS 2 UTJ Health interventions (Journal Club) AS 1 MAH Introduction to bioinformatics AS2 2 PAM SUBTOTAL 43 All lectures offered by Swiss TPH (also lectures from Master in Infection Biology) AND lectures from other fields within the University of Basel in agreement with the supervisor/Swiss TPH
AS: autumn semester / CP: credit points / SS: spring semester
24.06.2019
Non-mandatory surplus CP from modules c) Global & Public Health and d) Transferable Skills and Competences may count towards module e) Advances in Epidemiology, Statistics and Global & Public Health . But be aware that credit points from one lecture cannot be split between two modules. In module e) Advances in Epidemiology, Statistics and Global & Public Health credit points from other study programmes of the University Basel may be used in agreement with Swiss TPH supervisor. Credit points from other Universities must be approved by the faculty teaching commission prior to course registration and will only be granted if at least 3 CP.
72 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; General information
Master in Master Epidemiology - Spring Semester 2020 Timetable in Epidemiology 09:15-10:00
10:1511:00
EPH meeting
11:1512:00 Student meeting
Malaria epidemiology and control (semester 4)
14:1515:00
Health impact assessment at ETH week 1 - 7 (semester 4)
15:1516:00
16:1517:00
Scientific writing (semester 2 or 4)
Good scientific conduct in health sciences (semester 2)
Biostatistics (Journal Club) (semester 4)
Effective presentation skills (week 1 - 8) (semester 4)
Statistical methods in trial design week 1 - 7 (semester 2) Data analysis in epidemiology week 8 - 15 (semester 2)*
Programming in STATA week 8 -15 (semester 4)
Meet the epidemiology professionals (semester 4)
Bayesian biostatistics (semester 4)
Friday/Thursday
13:1514:00
Statistical methods in trial design week 1 - 7 Mathematical (semester 2) modelling of infectious diseases Data analysis in (semester 2)* epidemiology week 8 - 15 (semester 2)* Free Demography for health seminar (semester 2) slot
Wednesday
12:1513:00
17:15-18:00 compulsory
Advances in infection biology, epidemiology and global public health
transferable skills (5 ECTS) advanced (15 ECTS)
Climate change and health (semester 4)
Advanced One Health methods
Health impact assessment at ETH week 1 - 7 (semester 4)
CP
GIS in health and exposure sciences (semester 2)
2
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care (semester 2)
2
Research Data management (semester 2)
2
Health financing and economic evaluation (semester 2 or 4)
1
Project Management (semester 2 or 4)
2
Introduction to the application to an ethics committee (semester 2)
1
Medical entomology (semester 2 or 4)
2
Essentials in drug development and clinical trials (semester 4)
3
Programme evaluation (semester 4) (will take place from 2021)
1
Introduction to R for epidemiological data analysis (semester 4)
1
Advanced systematic reviews (semester 4) (will take place from 2021)
4
1-2 day or half-day blocks distributed over the semester
Tuesday
Monday
08:1509:00
Master in Infection Biology - Spring Semester 2020 Topics in host-pathogen interactions: Tuesdays 10.15-12.00, room Alpaymao Advanced Immunology of Infection: Fridays 11.15-12.00, room Alpamayo GREEN = ROOM LHOTSE (Socinstrasse 55, 4th floor)
RED = ROOM KILIMANJARO (Socinstrasse 57, ground floor)
BLACK = PLEASE CONSULT ONLINE DIRECTORY, https://vorlesungsverzeichnis.unibas.ch/en/home
4 MAY 2020: 13.00 - 18.00 TAUSCHEN MIT HCM (BERNIE)
General information â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 73
Spring Semester 2020
Block courses
Timetable Master in Epidemiology blocks version
Semester for MSc students
Thursday
GIS in health and exposure sciences
GIS in health and exposure sciences
semester 2
Lhotse
21.02.2020
Friday
GIS in health and exposure sciences
GIS in health and exposure sciences
semester 2
Lhotse
27.02.2020
Thursday
Introduction to R for epidemiological data analysis
Introduction to R for epidemiological data analysis
semester 2 or 4
Research Data Management
Research Data Management
semester 2
28.02.2020
Friday
Introduction to R for epidemiological data analysis
Introduction to R for epidemiological data analysis
semester 2 or 4
05.03.2020
Thursday
GIS in health and exposure sciences
GIS in health and exposure sciences
semester 2
Lhotse
06.03.2020
Friday
GIS in health and exposure sciences
GIS in health and exposure sciences
semester 2
Lhotse
12.03.2020
Thursday
Project Management
Project Management
semester 2 or 4
Research Data Management
Research Data Management
semester 2
13.03.2020
Friday
Project Management
Project Management
semester 2 or 4
19.03.2020
Thursday
Research Data Management
Research Data Management
semester 2
Project Management
Project Management
semester 2 or 4
Kilimanjaro
20.03.201
Friday
Project Management
Project Management
semester 2 or 4
Lhotse
26.03.2020
Thursday
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
semester 2 or 4
Lhotse
27.03.2020
Friday
Research Data Management
Research Data Management
semester 2
Lhotse
02.04.2020
Thursday
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
semester 2 or 4
Lhotse
03.04.2020
Friday
Application to an ethics committee
Application to an ethics committee
semester 2
Lhotse
09.04.2020
Thursday
MAUNDY THURSDAY
10.04.201
Friday
GOOD FRIDAY
16.04.2020
Thursday
17.04.2020
Friday
23.04.2020
Thursday
24.04.2020
Friday
30.04.2020
Thursday
01.05.2020
Friday
Kilimanjaro
Matterhorn Lhotse Matterhorn Lhotse
semester 2 or 4
Lhotse
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
semester 2 or 4
Lhotse
Application to an ethics committee
FREE
semester 2
Lhotse
Medical Entomology
semester 2 or 4
1 st MAY Medical Entomology
08.05.2020
Friday
14.05.2020
Thursday
15.05.2020
Friday
Health financing and economic evaluation Medical Entomology
21.05.2020
Thursday
ASCENSION
22.05.2020
Friday
28.05.2020
Thursday
29.05.2020
Friday
week 13 week 14 week 15
Lhotse
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
Thursday
74 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; General information
Kilimanjaro
Producing, interpreting and using evidence in health care
07.05.2020
week 12
week 11
week 10
week 6
week 5
week 4
week 3
week 2
week 1
20.02.2020
week 7
Afternoon
week 8
Morning
week 9
Date
Essentials in drug development and Essentials in drug development and semester 4 clinical trials clinical trials semester 2 or 4 Medical Entomology Medical Entomology
Kollegienhaus SR 103 Lhotse Kilimanjaro
Essentials in drug development and Essentials in drug development and Lhotse semester 4 clinical trials clinical trials Health financing and economic Health financing and economic Lhotse semester 2 or 4 evaluation evaluation Kollegienhaus semester 2 or 4 Medical Entomology Medical Entomology SR 103 Health financing and economic evaluation Medical Entomology
FREE Essentials in drug development and Essentials in drug development and clinical trials clinical trials Essentials in drug development and Essentials in drug development and clinical trials clinical trials
semester 2 or 4
Lhotse
semester 2 or 4
Kilimanjaro
semester 4
Lhotse
semester 4
Lhotse
Appendixes Appendix 1A
Data Sheet Master Student Profile Please fill in this form for initial registration. Default language is English.
Personal Data First name: ........................................................... Last name: ........................................................... E-mail: ............................................................... @stud.unibas.ch
Date of Birth: ........................................................ Gender: ............................................................... Nationality: ........................................................... Civil status: .......................................................... Mother tongue: .................................................................................................................................. Address (country of orgin): ................................................................................................................ Address (current home address in Switzerland): ............................................................................... Contact and address to be contacted in case of emergency: ............................................................ Swiss mobile Phone number (private): .............................................................................................. E-Mail (private): ................................................................................................................................ Insurance coverage abroad (in case you travel abroad on behalf of Swiss TPH):
1
Insurance company:............................................. Insurance number: .............................................. Insurance coverage Switzerland (health insurance, accident insurance):
1
Insurance name: .................................................. Insurance number: .............................................. 1Please
provide us with a copy of your insurance policy (health and accident).
Study information Master student in: Infection Biology Epidemiology Mobility Students â&#x20AC;&#x201C; University and Country: Other, specify:.......................................................................................................................... University and Country: ............................................................................................................ Start of master at Swiss TPH (Uni reg.date): Autumn ....................... .. 01.08........................... (Year) Remarks: .......................................................................................................................................... The undersigned confirms that the information given is correct and undertakes to inform the Student Administration immediately of any change.
Basel,................................................................... Signature: ...........................................................
Appendix - 75
Appendix 1B
Writing a MSc thesis protocol The thesis protocol helps you to – Focus your ideas – Make clear what it is you aim to achieve – Create a document to share with potential collaborators and – Provide documentation for ethical and scientific clearance if required.
The thesis protocol should be 10-15 pages long and should include: 1.
Title: A short statement of the research topic, including geographic location of work e.g. Incidence of intestinal parasites in school children in Timbuktu.
2.
Author: Your name.
3.
Address: Your address, phone numbers and e-mail address.
4.
Supervision: Name of your Supervisor and co-Supervisor (if any) along with their e-mail addresses.
5.
Specialisation: Master in epidemiology or infection biology.
6.
Summary: Not more than 200 words containing background, aim, approach and expected outcome of the research.
7.
Introduction: Summary of what is known about the subject (1-2 pages). Do not waste space with extended descriptions; try to be to the point. Provide the reason(s) and rationale for the thesis.
8.
Aim and objectives: State the aim of your thesis, e.g. identify highly variable microsatellites of M.ulcerans. Objectives are steps or smaller goals on the way to achieving your aim. In this section you can also formulate your hypotheses, e.g. Adults have a higher burden of Schistosoma than school children, or research question, e.g. what are the dynamics of acquired immunity against nematodes in cattle?
9.
Approach: Describe your proposed research activities (2-3 pages) and give a detailed description of your methods. If you intend to do a field study, start with a short description of the study population, study type (cross-sectional, case-control), sample size considerations, data collection, questionnaire design and validation, interventions, data analysis. If you intend to do a laboratory study, describe the source of the samples, the sample material you will use (worm eggs, DNA, serum samples, etc.), the methods of analysis, experiments, and evaluation of results.
10. Expected outcomes: Imagine the results you expect from your work and try to describe them, e.g. knowledge on the prevalence of P. falciparum in women. 11. Ethical statement: Identify and discuss with your Supervisor ethical concerns that may arise during your research and describe them (half page). For example, every child excreting worm eggs will receive mebendazole treatment. If you intend to work on human subjects, you require an ethics clearance. Discuss this with your Supervisor ahead of fieldwork. If ethical clearance is deemed necessary please see also section 3A "Ethical Clearance" before starting the writing process.
76 - Appendix
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12. Institutional setup and collaborations: Describe briefly (half page) the department and research unit in which you will do your work. If your research will be done abroad, describe the partner institutions, department and working group. Describe possible collaboration with other students and demarcate the objectives of each project. Show how you will complement each other’s work. 13. Time frame: Make a timeline for research progress, as shown below, giving a few details about each step. Month
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12
Item Study protocol Planning of field work Field data collection Data entry Data analysis Interpretation and write up of manuscript Handing in Thesis 14. Budget: Estimate the cost of your project, accounting for personnel, international and local travel, equipment, consumables, communication and administrative costs. Discuss with your Supervisor. 15. When preparing your documents, please consider “good documentary practice” the proposal and all ancillary documents. The following details should appear on each side in the header: Short running title Version-number and date of protocol (e.g. Protocol v1.1/15.04.2014) - (use 0.x for drafts; submit Ver 1.0 to the first ethics committee) 16. The following details should appear on each side in the footer: Clear page numbering e.g. X of Y or X/Y For study-related documents which have their own version-nr and date, the version-nr. And date of the protocol have to be added; e.g. for the “Patient Information and Consent” – document: PIC, v1.1/14.04.2014 referring to protocol v1.2/30.03.2014 17. Add a signature page at the beginning of your proposal (Principal investigator and/or supervisor, student, statistician, if applicable other key persons to the project. Only collect the signatures on the final document version (i.e. after FK clearance for PhD students)
Appendix - 77
Appendix 1C
MSc Thesis Structure Student research activities should result in a final, comprehensive, consistent and clear thesis report. You should write your thesis as if it were a scientific article for publication, but with rather more detail in the introduction and methods sections. The thesis should be understandable for a non-specialist. The thesis is not restricted by any fixed length requirements, but as a general rule, the thesis should not exceed 60 pages in length, excluding annexes. A good thesis is not necessarily a long thesis! A good thesis: – Should be clearly written and presented. – Should be concise. – Should be consistent in style and logic.
Thesis structure Table of contents: The table of contents gives an overview of the thesis’ chapter structure and its page numbers. It should also include the summary and any annexes. List of tables and figures: The outline is followed by a list of the tables and figures appearing in the text, including their (short) titles and respective page numbers. Summary: Provide a short (one page), complete summary of all chapters. Acknowledgment: Additional help must be mentioned, such as field workers’ activities or active support and practical help from technicians and colleagues. Similarly, any official financial support given to you or the project must be mentioned here. You could also acknowledge others who supported you or your thesis in other ways. Introduction and rationale: The introduction includes relevant background information or a brief overview of the field, including a review of the literature and the theoretical concepts you plan to use. This is the basis from which you formulate the problem statement and your hypothesis leading to a statement of your research questions and objectives. You can also give a characterisation of the type of work carried out and a short outline of the chapters that follow. During your research, you may have come up with additional questions. These should also be mentioned here, but it should be clear that these questions were not originally planned. Goals and objectives: This part states the overall goal of the project. It also contains a number of specific objectives, usually 2-4, which can later form chapters of the thesis or be converted into manuscripts for publication. Material and methods: This part reports on the information sources used, the methods applied, and the materials used for lab work or data collection, and for data analysis. You should present what was actually done, and reference any problems encountered. In the case of fieldwork, you should describe the area and sites at which the research was carried out. For experimental work, you should give all relevant details of the procedures followed.
78 - Appendix
Page 2
Results: Results should be presented in the most objective and comprehensive manner. Mixing results with interpretation and discussion should be avoided, unless the work is very descriptive. Where appropriate, the findings should be illustrated or summarised with tables and figures. Tables and figures must be drawn in such a way that they can be read on their own, independent of the surrounding text. Do not forget to include measurement units and explanations of abbreviations. References to tables and figures should be made in the text (e.g., see table 1; as shown in figure 2). Discussion: The discussion section should always start with a discussion of the methodology or approach chosen. Next, link your own findings, as presented in the results section, with those of other researchers. What do your results mean and imply? The challenge here is to argue for and against the findings and the related theoretical concepts. Literature references are therefore required and you must discuss your findings in the context of both the scientific objectives and the research questions laid out in the introduction. An internal and external validation of your results is also required. The discussion should not simply summarise the results! Conclusions: This section brings together the most important consequences of your research, normally referring to: 1. The scientific objective and the research questions (results); 2. Suggestions for future research on this topic 3. Practical implications of the findings References: It is very important that you give proper references when making statements from the literature. References acknowledge the work of others, and provide the reader with information on the sources that you used. You can use either the system of giving the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surname, and year of publication, with an alphabetical list of references at the end of the thesis, or you can number your references in the text and include a numbered list of references at the end. We recommend that you use reference management software. Annex or Appendix: An annex or appendix should be added to incorporate any information, which is too long or detailed to be included in the main body text but is relevant for understanding the research or important steps taken. This could mean for example: providing original data, detailed statistical analysis, etc. Font: Font should be Helvetica, Times New Roman, or comparable (Universal, Arial). Font size is normally 12. Do not use very small fonts. Line spacing should be at least 1.5 to allow for hand written corrections. Figures and tables: Figures and tables complement and clarify text, not vice versa. All tables and figures should be referred to in the text. Figures and tables should be clear, avoiding unnecessary lines and frames. Avoid vertical lines in tables. Similarly, coloured or grey backgrounds for figures should be removed if these do not add to comprehension. Each figure and table should have a legend that allows the table or figure to be understandable without reading the text.
Appendix - 79
Appendix 2A
PhD Student Resources PhD committee regulations and possible roles and responsibilities of Swiss TPH academic staff in PhD student supervisions and committees NOTE: For Faculty of Science PhD students enrolled before January 2016, the old PhD regulations apply (see older versions of the Manual).
Choosing the proper PhD discipline: Prior to make final decisions about the PhD discipline (Promotionsfach) you may consult these regulations and the table to be sure your supervisor qualifies for this role in the respective faculty. This is particularly useful in case of a thesis in the broader domains of epidemiology and/or public health and/or clinical research given that such theses easily qualify for the PhD in Epidemiology of the Faculty of Science, the PhD in Epidemiology/Public Health including Insurance Medicine at the Medical Faculty, or possibly the PhD in Clinical Research of the Faculty of Medicine if not as PhD in Economics (health economics). Committee members must be experts in the fields (or at least major parts) of the thesis. Remember that the PhD’s in the Science Faculty must have a Masters degree from a science or medical faculty. Else, many additional ECTS might be required. For PhD’s in the Medical Faculty, there is no such rule, thus one can make a PhD in (e.g.) Epidemiology/Public Health with a Master’s degree in Economics, Sports Sciences or Social Sciences etc. if the content relates to health sciences. Thus, choose the faculty/discipline (Promotionsfach) wisely and ask ET for advice early on to prevent to make any changes after the student has applied formally!
Committee regulation summary Rules about PhD committees and procedures slightly differ for PhD’s done in the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Medicine or the Faculty of Economics. In all cases, the PhD Committee has at least two members: 1) First supervisor (Erstbetreuung); 2) Second supervisor (Zweitbetreuung). The Science and the Medical Faculties require also a third Committee member, namely the External expert (old term: “Co-referee”). The external experts cannot be members of the same research group nor be co-authors of any PhD thesis related manuscript. The regulations of the Faculty of Science request even that external experts come from outside the University of Basel (whereas the Faculty of Medicine regulation keeps this undefined). We highly recommend that external experts of all Swiss TPH PhD students come from other universities. The external expert must be defined no later than upon submission of the thesis. External experts are not co-authors of PhD papers. One can have additional committee members if needed. Please abstain from assigning a “faculty representative” as this role does not exist anymore in any PhD regulation. In all three faculties it is required that at least one of the two supervisors (First or Second) must be a “Group I” Professor (Full and Associate Professors) of the respective faculty (or got the permission of the Faculty to serve in that role (see Table). For the other one, the rules differ across faculties (thus Promotionsfach): the Science Faculty requires the other one to be a Group I or Group II member of the University of Basel Faculty of Science. Only upon request of the Group I Science Faculty PhD (co-) supervisor, a scientist from outside the Science Faculty may qualify as supervisor. Instead, in a Faculty of Medicine PhD, the other supervisor (First or Second) can be from other faculties or other universities as long as they have the right to promote PhD’s at Uni Basel (no special request needed). The Faculty of Economics keeps this flexibility as well: upon request, the other supervisor can be from other faculties or universities (as long as they qualify to supervise PhDs). In all faculties, the committee has a Chair who is not a member of the PhD committee. The only function is, to lead the PhD defence in line with the regulations. The Chair is usually a Group I member of the respective faculty. In the Faculty of Science, qualifying Chairs can be selected by the
80 - Appendix
Page 2
supervisor / student. For defences of PhD’s in the Faculty of Medicine or the Faculty of Economics, it is usually the PhD commission of the Faculty who assigns the chair, although one may make suggestions. Chairs must make sure the defence is properly done and in line with all procedures (see Table 2A). IMPORTANT EXCEPTIONS: Several Swiss TPH scientists who are not Group I members and / or not in the Science Faculty or the Medical Faculty, respectively, have received the permission to act in Swiss TPH PhD student committees in the role of a “Group I” First or Second supervisor in both faculties. Table 2A provides all the details (according to the decision of the Faculty of Science Dean’s office, June 2016 and the Faculty of Medicine decision, June 2018). Table 2A: Swiss TPH academic staff, Academic status **), faculty group and faculty affiliation of all Swiss TPH University of Basel academics and related roles and responsibilities in PhD thesis committees. Staff not listed below need a special request from the Group I PhD (co-)supervisor made to the respective faculty to ask for permission to act as (First or Second) supervisor (Prof. emeriti – not listed below - cannot take up new PhD supervisions but might still be on the committee of previously enrolled PhD students up to three years after retirement). (PS: For supervisions of Master theses all academic Swiss TPH staff, qualified in the relevant topic, can be chosen). Name Swiss TPH Scientist
Academic
Faculty
status
Group
(professor
2)
Uni Basel Faculty 3)
level) 1)
PhD Faculty of Science First or Second supervisor (1st and 2nd supervisor must not be in the same research group)
defence
Chair thesis
PhD Faculty of Medicine First or Chair Second thesis desupervisor fence 4)
MD (Dr.med.) 1-yr Thesis, Med Faculty Dissertatio nsleitung
Dissertationsbetreuung (supervisor)
(lead)
Blum Johannes
Titulary
II
Med
Yes if 7)
No
Yes if 6)
No
Yes
Yes
Brancucci Nicolas
Assistant
I
Sci
Yes
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Burri Christian* ^
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
yes
No
No
Yes
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Cissé Guéladio
Professor
n/a
Burkina Faso Upon request to Dean
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
No
D’Acremont Valérie
Associate
n/a
Med Lausanne
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Fink Günther ^
Associate
I
Sci/ Econ
Yes
Yes
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Gagneux Sébastien ^
Associate
I
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Genton Blaise (UniL)
Full
n/a
Med Lausanne
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Glass Tracy
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Hetzel Manuel
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Keiser Jennifer
Associate
I
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Full
I
Med
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Assistant
II
Med
Yes if 7)
No
Yes if 6)
No
Yes
Yes
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Associate
I
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Mäusezahl Daniel
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Merten Sonja
PD
II
Med
Yes if 7)
No
Yes if 6)
No
Yes
Yes
Moore Sarah
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Mueller Pie
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Associate
I
Med
Yes if 5)
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Penny Melissa
SNSF Förderprof
I
Sci
Yes
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Poppert Sven
PD
II
Med
Yes if 7)
No
Yes if 6)
No
Yes
Yes
Probst-Hensch Nicole *
Full
I
Med
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Associate
I
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Ross Amanda
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Smith Tom * ^
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Steinmann Peter
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Tediosi Fabrizio
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Utzinger Jürg ^
Associate
I
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Van Eeuwijk Piet
PD
II
Hum
Upon request to Dean
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
No
Vienneau Danielle
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Associate
I
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Titulary
II
Med
Yes if 7)
No
Yes if 6)
No
Yes
Yes
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Chitnis Nakul
Daubenberger Claudia*
Künzli Nino * Labhardt Niklaus Lengeler Christian * ^ Mäser Pascal ^
Odermatt Peter *^ Paris Daniel
Röösli Martin ^
Voss Till ^ Vounatsou Penelope Weisser Rohacek Maja Winkler Mirko
Appendix - 81
Page 3
Wittlin Sergio (pending)
PD
II
Sci
Yes if 5)
No
Yes if 6)
No
No
Yes
Wyss Kaspar * ^
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Zemp Elisabeth
Titulary
II
Med
Yes if 8)
No
Yes if 6)
No
Yes
Yes
Zinsstag Jakob* ^
Titulary
II
Sci
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
∗ These professors qualify to act in PhD committees like a “Group I Science Faculty member” (5 year permission) ∧ These Science Faculty professors qualify to act in PhD committees like a “Group I Medical Faculty member” (decision of the Med Faculty from 2017 and 2018; valid for 5 years) 1. 2. 3. 4.
Titles are provided by University Basel Full and Associate Professors (and SNSF Förderprofessors) are Group I; all others Group II Faculties: Faculties of Science (Sci), Medicine (Med), Humanities (Hum) In the Medical Faculty, it is the PhD Faculty commission who chooses the Chair (most often a member of that commission, but all Group I Medical Faculty professors would qualify) 5. “Yes if 5” = Staff qualifies as First or Second supervisor if the other supervisor qualifies as supervisor (Group I) in the Science Faculty (i.e. the other one needs a Yes or Yes* in this column) 6. “Yes if 6” = Staff qualifies as First or Second supervisor if the other supervisor fully qualifies as supervisor (Group I) in the Medical Faculty (i.e. the other one needs a Yes or Yes* in this column) 7. “Yes if 7” = Staff qualifies as First or Second supervisor if the other supervisor fully qualifies as supervisor (Group I) in the Science Faculty (i.e. the other one needs a Yes or Yes* in this column)
**) Academic positions are PD (Habilitation), Assistentprofessor / Förderprofessor and similar, Titulary Professor, and Associate and Full Professors. The latter two are the only positions for which University assigns “core funding”; the two are meanwhile considered to be “equal”, but the terms still appear. Usually, full professors may have the responsibility to represent a specific field for which Uni Basel (i.e. the faculties) decided to hold “structured positions” (Ordinariat) which, upon retirement, are usually replaced through new recruitments). Occasionally, even those positions are “ad personam”, thus, retirement does not call for replacement. All other positions are “ad personam” as well, with neither a University “budget line” nor a replacement. NOTE: These are the University rules; as an associate institute, Swiss TPH has its own core funding model and contract with the university. But in terms of academic functions, all university rules equally apply to the Swiss TPH academics.
82 - Appendix
Appendix 2B
Guidelines for writing a PhD proposal Students please use the PhD proposal template provided (https://team.swisstph.ch/s/TrB0dISEQqKXr2BWq18EIw) and be aware of the following:
here
1. The proposal should not exceed 15 pages (not including references) 2. For the main text, use font size11, and single spacing (references can be smaller). 3. Prior to submission to reviewers and the Research Commission, your supervisor must read and agree with the submission.
The proposal should include: Topic
Comments
Front page
Title of project, student’s name, Supervisor’s name, primary unit of student; date of submission; Institution name/address; student’s e-mail address Maximum 400 words summarising introduction, background, objectives, methods, and relevance of thesis
Abstract Table of contents Introduction and background Objectives, hypotheses, specific aims, relevance of the thesis Research plan / Methods
Explain what research question(s) you will be addressing and why it is important. May be useful to structure according to the manuscripts that will come out of the thesis Describe how you will answer your research question(s), by outlining, as applicable: – Study population – Study design – Exams / Measurements – Statistical analysis plan – Sample size calculation / justification Discuss the Research plan and Methods with our Statistical Support in an early stage (Marek Kwiatkowski).
Time plan with milestones List of tentative titles of manuscripts indicating the author position of the student Ethical issues Does project have ethical clearance? From where? When? Responsible applicant? If ethical clearance is deemed necessary please see also section 3A "Ethical Clearance" before starting the writing process. Collaboration and support Be sure to distinguish between internal (Swiss TPH) and external collaborators and support; this may go well beyond the members of the PhD Committee itself. There should be a clear explanation of the roles and responsibilities of each party named. PhD Committee List the names and roles of PhD committee members. Short CV One page curriculum vitae CV to understand the proposed additional training.
Appendix - 83
Page 2
Professional training to be undertaken Budget plan Reference list Appendix
84 - Appendix
Include assessment of total ECTS credit points needed (see Chapter 5.1 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lecture work and trainingâ&#x20AC;?), give details of planned lecture work, conferences etc. as far as already known. Include details about the funding agency and funding concept for the part relevant to the thesis itself (student salary, publications, travel, etc.). Restrict to most important references (some 30-50 is usually sufficient). Only if needed; append. counts towards the 15-page length limit.
Appendix 2C
Competences in Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology (MPI) Fundamentals of MPI (includes microbiology and cell biology) PhD students in MPI need to master the fundamental concepts of Infection Biology with an emphasis on neglected infectious diseases of importance to public health. These include: – Disease systems Life cycle and biology of infectious agents; working techniques in modern biology (biochemistry, genetics, immunology, molecular and cellular biology); tools for diagnosis and interventions (drugs and vaccines). – Basic epidemiological concepts Epidemiological study design; risk factor concepts; basic statistical analysis skills; understanding problems in the national health programmes of countries with limited resources. While it is not possible to acquire in-depth knowledge in all of these areas during the course of PhD studies, training should target acquisition of specialist-level knowledge in the disease(s) relevant to the research project and basic knowledge in understanding infectious diseases in resource restricted countries.
Research skills Students need to be: – Trained in general research skills for laboratory and field work (including safety guidelines). – Able to interpret and critically review data, and pose innovative and relevant research questions. – Informed by a systematic and timely review of the literature, to deduce from it further relevant theoretical and conceptual models, and to select an appropriate research approach to address the research question. – Equipped to work in a research team, apply resources responsibly, ensure ethical and responsible professional conduct, and effectively communicate the findings and implications of their research to a broader research community (through scientific publications, presentations, teaching), as well as to non-specialists.
Personal and management skills Many practical skills are acquired during the research work. As the project progresses, the student should gradually take over more tasks related to project management and leadership and thus develop these skills. Scientific writing skills for production of papers, grant applications, and reports are also important. Training in presentations skills and ethical conduct is another essential part of doctoral training.
Appendix - 85
Appendix 2D
Competences in Epidemiology and Public Health Fundamentals of Epidemiology and Public Health PhD students in Epidemiology and Public Health need to master the fundamental concepts of public health. These include: – Epidemiology Determinants of health and illness; epidemiological study designs and measurements; sources of errors and bias; risk factor and causality concepts; statistical concepts to analyse and interpret data. – Social and behavioural science in health research Addressing inequities in health; psychosocial factors affecting health behaviour; strategies for health promotion and disease prevention. – Health system research Effectiveness, efficiency and equity of health care systems; outcome research; basic knowledge of health economics and health policy. – Exposure science Basic concepts on how to measure and characterise exposure to environmental causes of diseases.
Research skills Students need to be: – Trained in general research skills including writing scientific manuscripts and grant applications, and advanced methodological skills in the specific area of research. – Able to pose innovative and important research questions informed by a systematic review of the literature, stakeholder needs, and relevant theoretical and conceptual models, and to select an appropriate study design to address the research question. – Equipped to work in a multi-disciplinary team, ensure ethical professional conduct and effectively communicate research findings and implications to technical and non-specialist audiences (through publications, presentations, teaching). – Able to show the policy implications of their research and express these to a broad audience.
Personal and management skills Many practical skills are acquired during the research work. As the project progresses, the student should gradually take over tasks related to project management and leadership and thus develop these skills.
86 - Appendix
Appendix 2E
Guidelines for the internal PhD proposal evaluation process Swiss TPH Research commission (RC) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; version 2015 PhD supervisor Immediately after registration of the new PhD project with the University of Basel/Swiss TPH, the PhD supervisor: 1. suggests and finds two Swiss TPH colleagues (project leaders who are not directly involved in the project) who agree on reviewing the PhD proposal. The PhD supervisor conveys this information to Marco Waser 2. decides (together with Marco Waser) at which forthcoming RC meeting the research proposal will be discussed (this has to occur within 3-6 months after registration of the PhD student) 3. determines the composition of the PhD committee
PhD candidate 1. writes his/her research proposal according to the guidelines (Student handbook Appendix 2-B) 2. submits the complete document to both reviewers until 4 weeks before the scheduled RC meeting at the latest 3. schedules a meeting (no later than 2 weeks before the scheduled RC meeting) to discuss the proposal with both reviewers and the PhD supervisor 4. resubmits the revised proposal (in which all issues have been adequately addressed) to both reviewers (no later than 1 week before the scheduled RC meeting) 5. submits the final proposal and a concise abstract of their PhD proposal to Marco Waser. 6. prepares a short presentation to introduce his/her PhD project to the RC audience (Studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handbook Appendix 2-F)
Reviewers The evaluation process consists of two phases: Phase 1: Within 2 weeks after receiving the first version of the proposal, the reviewers: 1. evaluate the proposal and use the PhD proposal evaluation form as a tool to assess all relevant criteria 2. discuss the outcome of their evaluation with the PhD candidate and supervisor in a meeting organised by the PhD candidate (if meeting in person is impossible, this exchange has to take place by other means) Phase 2: Within 1 week after meeting with the PhD candidate and supervisor, the reviewers receive the final, revised proposal from the PhD candidate 1. The reviewers fill out the evaluation form a second time. Criteria that are sound may simply be check-marked and commented by a single phrase if necessary. Only those issues that remain to be solved in the revised version need specific but concise comments. The reviewer also recommends the final proposal for approval, minor or major revision. However, the whole idea behind this streamlined evaluation process is that final proposals can be approved in principle by the Research Commission 2. The reviewer and supervisor briefly comment on the proposal after the presentation by the PhD candidate 3. Major issues may be discussed in the plenary again before the chair decides on further steps if necessary.
Appendix - 87
Appendix 2F
Proposed Structure of PhD Project Presentation at the Research Commission Meeting – Presentation should not exceed 5-7 minutes! – Limit presentation to 5 slides and a Title page. – Send the slides one day before the meeting to Marco Waser. Title of PhD proposal, your name and affiliation, members of doctoral committee and their function (Primary Supervisor, Secondary Supervisor, external experts (additional experts)) 1. Give some information on who you are (background training) 2. Short background of project. Is it part of a larger research activity, SNF / EU funded? 3. What are the research questions / hypothesis? 4. Methods and expected outcomes 5. Time plan, planned training during PhD
88 - Appendix
Appendix 2G
Evaluation report for PhD proposals Swiss TPH Research commission (RC) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; version March 2015 PhD project (title) PhD candidate Supervisor Reviewer Date of first Review PhD proposal is part of a larger, peer-reviewed grant application (please specify)
Yes No
PhD student is enrolled in a PhD Programme (please specify)
Yes No
No Criteria
1 2
The research project is concisely presented Scientific interest
3
Scientific novelty
4
Methodology
5
Feasibility and time plan
6
Public health relevance
7
The proposed research is consistent with key areas of Swiss TPH activities 8 Ethical considerations fully addressed 9 Internal collaborations (roles and responsibilities clearly defined) 10 External collaborations (roles and responsibilities clearly defined) 11 Skill development
Reviewers comments (1st review)
Comments sufficiently addressed in revised version Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No
Appendix - 89
Page 2
12 PhD committee (roles and responsibilities clearly defined) 13 Lectures, courses, etc. included and adequate (≥12 CPs; ≥18 CPs if part of a PhD programme) 14 Budget plan included and complete 15 Additional comments
Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No 1 2 3
16 Reviewer’s recommendation: revised proposal approved (1) / minor revisions (2) / major revisions (3)1 1 If the proposal needs major revisions after the Research Commission meeting, it has to be resubmitted to RC for evaluation.
90 - Appendix
Appendix 2H
Studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Self-Assessment Form Which experiences improved your competencies to conduct research in your specific area of study?
How could you acquire broader Public Health competencies?
Which personal competencies and soft skills could you develop further?
Which experiences improved your management and leadership skills?
Which additional competencies do you need to acquire during the next reporting period?
(For the 2nd and 3rd annual meeting) Check the agreements from the last annual meeting. Describe target achievement for every point (achieved, or if not, discuss)
Summarise all agreements made during the annual meeting and give the text to your supervisor to countercheck
Set up a work plan and time line for the next year. If the next year is your final year, include the state of providing your data to the Swiss TPH data repository (see Section 5.1 Post-PhD actions) and the plans to achieve this goal. (For MPI students only) List all major research results obtained during your study period.
Appendix - 91
Appendix 2I
Documentation of formal training, attended conferences, presentations given or paper published List of doctoral training
Lecture / Workshop
List of conferences attended Conference
List of presentations, talks, journal clubs Talk / Poster / Journal Club
Location
Date
ETCS
Location
Date
Location
Date
List of submitted or published papers / reviews / articles Title / Authors
List of teaching activities Teaching / Training
92 - Appendix
Status (submitted, accepted, published)
No of Students
Date / Location
Appendix 2J
Annual meeting confirmation Form Annual meeting confirmation Form The doctoral committee and the student have met for their ___________ annual meeting and discussed the progress of the PhD study based on the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self-assessment. Date of the annual meeting (dd. mm. yyyy): ...................................................................................... Name of doctoral student: ................................................................................................................. Name of Supervisor: ........................................................................................................................ Name of other member(s) of the doctoral committee present at the annual meeting: ......................................................................................................................................................... ......................................................................................................................................................... At the first meeting of the doctoral committee it has been agreed disagreed with the student to continue the PhD study
Student Signature:
Supervisor Signature:
Appendix - 93
Appendix 2K
PhD thesis structure A typical structure includes: – – – – – – – – – –
Table of contents Acknowledgements Summary (in English) Introduction Chapters made up of manuscripts, either published or ready for publication. Each chapter should be formatted in a unified style. Additional chapters can be added as “working papers” if these will not lead to publication. Discussion providing a unifying theme through the work and touching upon points not found in the chapter discussions. Conclusions List of references* (references can also be included at the end of each chapter) Appendices A brief curriculum vitae
Look at recent examples of Swiss TPH theses in the Institute’s library.
*Towards more unified bibliometric referencing in Swiss TPH MSc and PhD theses Using reference manager software (e.g. Zotero, EndNote, etc) allows for one single list of all cited references at the end of the thesis (not each chapter) and thus avoids much redundancy from repeating references common across many chapters and saves pages in the final print versions. The preferred referencing style of in text citations is Harvard Style, which names first authors and the year in the text, and lists all bibliographic references in alphabetic order in a single list at the end of the thesis including all authors (no et al). This makes it easier for examiners to appreciate whether appropriate literature has been cited in the appropriate places without constantly checking numbered lists in the manuscript into different bibliographies in the thesis. For reference managers to assemble a single bibliography at the end of the thesis requires a single manuscript of the thesis. Ideally the MSc and PhD dissertation manuscript should apply internally consistent and continuous page numbering and chapter numbering linked to a detailed Table of Contents. This is easiest done using the original manuscripts of the chapters or published papers concatenated into a single word processed document using section breaks for chapters and unique chapter headers. For the PhD dissertation where some chapters will have been already published as papers, this could include the final word processed manuscript as submitted but also incorporate where advantageous any professional graphics from any of the published versions. This allows the automated Table of Contents and Table of Figures to be complete. Such chapters have a facing page indicating the citation of the published paper.
94 - Appendix
Appendix 2L
Data sheet PhD student profile Please fill in and submit this form to Swiss TPH student administration. Default language is English. First name: .......................................................... Last name: .......................................................... E-mail: ................................................................@unibas.ch Date of Birth: ....................................................... Gender: .............................................................. Nationality: .......................................................... Civil status: ......................................................... Mother tongue: ................................................................................................................................. Address (country of origin): .............................................................................................................. Address (current home address in Switzerland): .............................................................................. Address to be contacted in case of emergency: ............................................................................... Swiss mobile Phone number (private): ............................................................................................ E-mail (private): .............................................................................................................................. 1
Insurance coverage Switzerland (health insurance, accident insurance):
Insurance name: ................................................. Insurance number: ............................................. 1
Please submit a copy of your insurance policy (Health and accident).
Study information PhD student in: Cell biology (Fac. Of Science) at University: Basel Clinical Research (Fac. Of Medicine) Other, specify ............. Drug Development (Fac. of Medicine) Epidemiology (Fac. of Science) Epidemiology, Public Health, Insurance Medicine (Fac. of Medicine) Ethics (Fac. of Medicine) Microbiology (Fac. of Science) Nursing Science (Fac. of Medicine) Sport Science (Fac. of Medicine) Zoology (Fac. of Science) Other, specify:..........................................................................................................................
Funding source (if you do not know please ask your supervisor): Swiss National Science Foundation – SNF Amt für Ausbildungsbeiträge Kt BS / Scholarship Agency BS Bundesstipendium / Scholarship ESKAS Forschungsprojekt / Research project Projekte ext. Partner, Lohn Heimatland / Project from home country Other, specify:.......................................................................................................................... Appendix - 95
Page 2
Do you have a contract issued by the HR of Swiss TPH? Yes No
starting date: .......................................................................................
Do you have a contract with another institution? Yes No
Name of the institution and country: ....................................................
University registration date: Spring:
01.02. ................ (year)
Autumn:
01.08. ................ (year)
Status During your PhD study will you spend at least 2/3 of your working time in office space at the Swiss TPH in Basel, Switzerland? Yes No
Supervisors (see Student Handbook Appendix 2A if you do not know all answers) Primary Supervisor Name: .............................................................................................................................................. His / her Faculty affiliation:
Faculty of Science Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Humanities other: ........................................................................
Is he / she a Group I Professor:
yes
no
(or with permission as Group I â&#x20AC;&#x201C; see Student Handbook Appendix 2A)
Secondary Supervisor Name: ............................................................................................................................................... His / her Faculty affiliation:
Faculty of Science Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Humanities other: ........................................................................
Is he / she a Group I Professor:
yes
no
(or with permission as Group I â&#x20AC;&#x201C; see Student Handbook Appendix 2A)
Remarks: ............................................................................................................................. ......................................................................................................................................................... The undersigned confirms that the information given is correct and undertakes to inform the Student Administration immediately of any change. Basel,
96 - Appendix
Signature:
Appendix 3
Appendix 3: General Resources for MSc and PhD Students Appendix 3A: Ethical Clearance for Swiss TPH Projects Principle: Any project involving humans requires an ethical clearance. General info The Swiss TPH Human Subject Research Desk (HSR Desk) (hsr-desk@swisstph.ch) has the mandate to support Swiss TPH researchers with applications to Ethics Committees and Authorities and in the related processes, and with this to ensure a consistent quality of Swiss TPH documents submitted worldwide. The service is free for Swiss TPH staff and students. The HSR Desk has to be mandatorily contacted during the preparation of any study involving humans including the collection of human health data and samples. HSR Desk provides information on documents needed depending on the study type, and the format and content of such documents. All documents necessary for submission have to be reviewed by the HSR Desk prior to submission (see Swiss TPH intranet (https://intranet.swisstph.ch/en/information-resources/human-subjectresearch-desk/). Please note: the earlier HSR Desk is contacted during the project preparation the more efficiently the service may be provided. Turnover time by HSR Desk for requests and reviews is normally five working days per cycle. Ethical clearance The general policy of Swiss TPH is to follow the best practice rule for ethical clearance and in accordance with this all research we conduct in the Low and Middle Income Countries and in which we have a major role (Sponsor, PI, MSc / PhD supervisor or similar) has to get double clearance from Switzerland (i.e. EKNZ by law for Swiss TPH) plus the country where the research is being performed (including potentially a local institutional review board). As an exception, no submission to a Swiss ethics committee is required if there is another official Northern Ethics Committee which has given a written positive opinion for the comprehensive project, e.g. WHO, MSF, US IRB). Local clearance by the responsible Ethics Committee is mandatory in all cases and independent of an existing Northern approval. Drug authority authorization In addition to ethical approval which has to be obtained for each project involving humans including the collection of human health data and samples, clinical trials also need the approval of the respective National Authority (Drug Regulatory Authority, Ministry depending on the country). The necessary process needs to be clarified in advance with the local partner. Research Clearance Certain countries require a research clearance for expatriate and/or visiting scientists. If such clearance is required in a country, researchers have the obligation to assure such approval is obtained in a timely manner from the respective national authorities. Study Insurance Depending on the type of research and the local regulations, a special study insurance covering any harm to the participant may be necessary; HSR Desk can provide support. Please note ď&#x201A;ˇ For existing biospecimens, e.g. those stored at Swiss TPH, that may be re-evaluated or used in a new study, current international guidelines and literature require acquisition of a new ethical clearance and consent from the participant (certain exceptions may exist). Page 1/2
Appendix - 97
Current international guidelines and literature require the destruction of samples after the completion of a study. The time point of destruction should be defined in the study protocol and be mentioned in the patient information – from a pragmatic point of view we suggest publication of the final study report or the major publication of the respective project as an optimal time point for sample destruction. We further suggest to consider in each project to integrate a separate general research consent allowing the future use of collected samples.
In Switzerland, Ethics Committees are organized by region; the responsible Ethics Committee is defined by the domicile of the investigator. In case of a multicenter-study, the Lead Ethics Committee (where the Principle Investigator is domiciled) informs the other Ethics Committees where the study will be conducted, so only one submission is necessary.
When preparing your documents, please consider “good documentation practice” for the proposal and all ancillary documents. The following details should appear on each page ( e. g. ) in the header: o Short running study title (Study Acronym) o Version-nr and date of protocol (e.g. Protocol v1.0_15.04.2019 = > use 0.x for drafts; use Ver 1.0 for the first submission to ethics committee The following details should appear on each page (e.g. in the footer): o Clear page numbering e.g. X of Y or X/Y o For study-related documents which have their own version-nr and date, the version-nr. and date of the protocol have to be added; e xa m p l e: for the “Patient Information and Consent (PIC)” – document: PIC, v1.0/1.04.2019 referring to protocol v1.0/15.04.2019
For studies involving humans, add the copy of your signed PhD / Master Proposal Cover Page at the beginning of your proposal (Principal investigator and/or supervisor, student, statistician, if applicable other key persons to the project. Only collect the signatures on the final document version (i.e. after FK clearance for PhD students)
Before submitting your dossier via the BASEC platform (Swiss ethics electronic submission platform) to the corresponding Swiss Ethics Committee (in general EKNZ) your cover letter attached to your submission dossier must be signed by: • Your supervisor • and co-signed by Prof. Daniel Paris, Medical Director at Swiss TPH (clinical trials) OR Prof. Christian Burri, Head HSR Desk at Swiss TPH (studies other than clinical trials) • Please use the correct Swiss TPH letter template (from intranet) with the contact details of your supervisor (but not your private address) • Indicate the Swiss TPH invoice address and recipient in the letter
Please list your project in the Swiss TPH project database accessible through Swiss TPH intranet (responsibility of the Project Leader / Supervisor)
International registration is mandatory for clinical trials: Swiss TPH has an account with clinicaltrials.gov for registration of clinical trials. Prof. Christian Burri is the Swiss TPH administrator; please contact him to obtain access for study registration (prior recruitment of 1st participant). Other official registries may be chosen if needed.
The Swiss TPH has a US OHRP registration number, which is available at the HSR Desk if required (e.g. NIH grants, Bill & Melinda Gates Grants, US FDA registrations).
98 - Appendix
Swiss TPH Human Subject Research – Desk (HSR-Desk) & Ethical Submission Procedure in Switzerland Action
Responsible
Details
First contact with Swiss TPH HSRDesk (hsr-desk@swisstph.ch)
Project Leader or Student
Describe your request/study idea and attach your project proposal or synopsis if already available
~ 5 working days
Feedback on “risk category” of project and instructions on the documents to be prepared (according to BASEC Document Matrix)
Preparation of documents, sending them to HSR-Desk for review
HSR-Desk Team
Project Leader or Student
HSR-Desk Team (+ Medical Director for clinical trials)
Check of documents
Documents ok
• Is an ethical clearance necessary or an “ethical exemption” sufficient? • Definition of risk category • Which documents have to be prepared?
Feedback to Project Leader or Student, ≤ 5 working days
Documents not yet ok Revision of documents according to feedback of HSR-Desk
Project Leader or Student
Ready for submission
Create an account on BASEC platform https://submissions.swissethics.ch/en/ user/login
Project Leader or Student
Upload HSR Desk approved documents
If documents ok for submission: • Get cover letter signed by Prof. Daniel Paris (Medical Director) for clinical trials / Prof. Christian Burri (Head HSR-Desk) for all other studies • PL signs cover letter (not student) • HSR-Desk sends detailed instructions uploading of documents on BASEC platform • Create an account in BASEC and upload your documents • You will receive an automatic confirmation of your uploaded dossier by email
(e.g. Feedback from EKNZ ~ 4 weeks after submission date)
EC Approval or request for changes and invoice will be sent to HSR-Desk that will forward documents to Project Leader
Ethics Committee(s) Approval
Forward Ethics Committee(s) approval to Project Leader
HSR-Desk Team
Please note: The HSR-Desk is provided by Swiss TPH / Department of Medicine Contact info: T: 061 284 89 60 (Monique Vogel) / Email: hsr-desk@swisstph.ch
V09/23.07.2019
Appendix - 99
Appendix 3B
Plagiarism Swiss TPH considers plagiarism to be a serious academic offence. For the University of Baselâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s official rules (Faculty of Sciences) on plagiarism, please visit: https://philnat.unibas.ch/de/studium/ (Informationen & Downloads). What Is Plagiarism?* Plagiarism is copying or paraphrasing text that is not your own and using other people's ideas without giving due credit (i.e. giving the impression that the ideas are your own). Using material for which you have already received credit points and failing to acknowledge assistance you have received also constitutes plagiarism Avoiding Plagiarism* Document your source whenever you use a phrase, text or idea put forward by someone else. Make sure that you do this thoroughly, correctly and consistently. When taking notes, carefully distinguish between your own thoughts and material you have found elsewhere. In a publication, indicate the source of ideas that are not your own, both in the body text (with in-text citations) and in the list of references. If you use material and ideas that you have used before, indicate this in the Acknowledgements section. If you are actually quoting yourself, quote yourself explicitly. In addition, include an Acknowledgements section at the beginning of your paper. If you have received assistance, for example, with statistical analysis or English language correction, give a fair account of this in your "Acknowledgements" section. If you are in doubt about how to acknowledge the help you have received, choose the more explicit version. Those who have helped you will appreciate your generosity. *Adapted from the document On Good Academic Practice/Plagiarism produced by the Department of English at the University of Basel.
100 - Appendix
Appendix 3C
Corporate Identity at Swiss TPH Corporate identity is important for the recognition and image of the Institute; therefore, we ask that the following Swiss TPH corporate identity information and materials be consistently used by our staff and students.
Official Names 'Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute' 'Schweizerisches Tropen- und Public Health-Institut' 'Institut Tropical et de SantĂŠ Publique Suisse'
Abbreviation 'Swiss TPH' as written in the logo, is our official abbreviation for all languages. Abbreviations like 'STPH' and 'ITSP' should not be used. This is especially important due to today's full text index searches, e.g., Google.
Resources available on the Swiss TPH Intranet MS Office Templates Logos PR Messages and Materials eMail Signature (docx) Corporate Colors and Fonts (pdf) Proofreaders, Editors, Translators (xlsx)
Templates available on the Swiss TPH Intranet MS Word Letter Memo Fax Blank page with logo only Report with instructions and troubleshooting Report, blank Report, simple (cover page and ToC only) Fact sheet Info/news sheet sample, simple Info/news sheet sample, photo header Event announcement, internal Event programme sample
MS Powerpoint Presentation with guide and examples Presentation, blank Poster, scientific sample Poster, scientific A0 Poster, scientific A4 Poster, marketing sample A1 Poster, marketing sample A4 Event direction signs A4 Event direction signs A3
Appendix - 101
Appendix 3D
List of Accomodation Wohnheim Borromaeum Byfangweg 6 CH-4051 Basel
Contact: Mr Rasp 42 rooms Tel +41 61 205 94 30 E-mail: info@borromaeum.ch http://borromaeum.ch/wohnheim/ueberdas-wohnheim.html Genossenschaft-Studentenheim Contact: Mrs Marelli 104 rooms Mittlere Strasse 33 Tel +41 61 261 71 45 CH-4056 Basel Fax: +41 61 261 71 47 E-mail:studentenheimmittlerestrasse@unibas.ch https://www.unibas.ch/de/Studium/StudentLife/Wohnen/GenossenschaftStudentenheim.html Wohnheim Katholisches Studentenhaus Tel +41 61 264 63 63 Only a few Herbergsgasse 7 Fax: +41 61 264 63 64 rooms CH-4051 Basel E-mail: studentenhaus@unibas.ch www.studentenhaus.ch/index_eng.htm Le Centre Contact: Ms Kauffmann Only a few (Eglise francaise reformee) Tel +41 61 270 96 60 rooms Holbeinplatz 7 E-mail: agnes.kauffmann@erk-bs.ch CH-4051 Basel https://www.unibas.ch/en/Studies/StudentLife/Accommodation/Le-Centre-StudentResidence.html Bed & Breakfast Contact: Ms Provoost-Meier Private Sonnenweg 3 Tel +41 61 702 21 51 rooms CH-4144 Arlesheim Fax: +41 61 703 96 76 E-mail: info@bbbasel.ch www.bbbasel.ch Apartments Schuetzenmatt AG Tel +41 61 272 77 00 Schuetzenmattstrasse 42 Fax: +41 61 272 77 01 CH-4051 Basel E-mail: info@apartments-basel.ch www.apartments-basel.ch Universität Basel https://markt.unibas.ch/category/wohnenWohnen für Studenten Markt angebot Verein Studentische Wohnvermittlung Tel: +41 61 261 97 58 WoVe Fax: +41 61 261 97 40 und Zimmerbörse E-mail: Info@wove.ch Petersgraben 50 www.wove.ch/ CH- 4051 Basel Universität Basel https://www.unibas.ch/de/Studium/Student>Studium/Student Life/Wohnen Life/Wohnen.html Appartmenthaus T +41 (0)61 333 05 30 Gundeli-Park F +41 (0)61 333 05 31 J. J. Balmer Strasse 1 E-mail: info@basel-city-apartments.ch CH-4053 Basel https://www.basel-city-apartments.ch/ Bed and Breakfast Tel: +41 61 692 02 65 2 rooms Horburgstrasse 95 http://h95.ch/bed-and-breakfast CH-4057 Basel E-mail: info@h95.ch Internetportal https://www.homegate.ch/de
102 - Appendix
Swiss TPH
Biozentrum
URZ
Institute For Med. Mic. Bio
University Library
University Main Building
KUG
NL U
Appendix 3E
Map of Basel
Appendix - 103
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute Socinstrasse 57 P.O. Box 4002 Basel Switzerland Telephone +41 (0)61 284 81 11 www.swisstph.ch
To give feedback and suggestions for future updates, please contact: nicole.peter@swisstph.ch Last update: April 2020