Useful Info for Ph.D. students and other newcomers
Disclaimer: This page contains a compilation of information that might be useful for my Ph.D. students and is by no means an official DPNC page.
Information should be cross-checked with the secretariat, administration and one's supervisors.
Useful links
The doctoral degree portal - UniGe Faculty of Sciences
Administrative
UniGe welcome brochure provided by the DPNC secretariat
Read carefully the following page: "Mon doctorat FAQ" from the secrétariat des étudiants (Faculty of Science)
General rules related to the Ph.D. in the faculty of science
Rules specific to the physics section
Doctoral courses
UniGe physics section doctoral courses
EPFL physics doctoral school
CERN academic training lectures
Thesis timeline
About six months before the targetted thesis defence, the following timeline should be accounted for:
The thesis should be sent to the secrétariat des étudiants following instructions outlined in this page at least 20 days before the defence. At that point the thesis should be of final structure. Editorial changes can happen between that point and when the thesis is ready for printing.
To satisfy the above deadline, the thesis should be ready for iterations with the jury at least a month before it is ready to be sent to the secretariat. The jury typically gets about 3 weeks to read and give feedback to the Ph.D. student. For planning purposes it is safe to account for a thesis ready for the jury about two months before the planned defence day.
About a month should be allowed for iterations on the full thesis between the Ph.D. student and the supervisor, before the thesis is sent to the jury. Ideally the thesis will be reviewed in stages during the writting period.
Attentance of doctoral courses and/or schools is expected in the course of the Ph.D. duration, as agreed between the student and their supervisor. Typically at least an oral exam is required by the secretariat. At the DPNC the exam is typically certified using this form.
| ☆ |
Thesis defence
|
⟽
(20 days)
|
Thesis to secretariat |
⟸
(1 month)
|
Thesis to jury |
⟸
(1 month)
|
Full thesis ready for internal review |
⟸
(about 2 months)
|
First 3 chapters ready for internal review |
Registration at the UniGe and CERN
Newcomers will need to have a Home Institute Declaration signed by the department director. This will be needed for registration at CERN (to be complete by team leader). For this process, a copy of the passport and the home address will be requested.
ATLAS members-to-be will need to complete the ATLAS registration.
For a change of institute and/or experiment, an EDH request is needed.
To retrieve your UniGe account password, please ask the DPNC system admin for your username and go here.
You will need to be added to various UniGe DPNC / ATLAS mailing lists. Please ask your supervisor / others in the group for related instructions.
To get a HPC (Baobab and Yggdrasil clusters) account, please check here. You will need to request access to 'private_dpnc' and 'share_atlas'. Please ask your supervisor / others in the group for related instructions.
Ph.D. students for which registration is not dealt with centrally by our secretariat should follow instructions described at the UniGe student admissions page. An application form is to be submitted following instructions in that admissions page.
The "attestation de direction" form needs to be provided by the supervisor as it will be needed in the process.
🏠 Housing in Geneva & surroundings
The following resources can be useful when looking for accomodation in Geneva and around:
The UniGe welcome center
Information about housing in Geneva and France from CERN HR
Student housing:
Facebook groups with housing ads:
CERN Market
Search websites:
Note: the CERN facebook group and CERN Market are extremely efficient forums for quickly finding a first accomodation, especially if you are looking for a flat to share with other students.