Ph.D. students - practical info

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 writing guidelines

  • Thesis writing guidelines
  • Older Ph.D. theses in the team and the department


  • 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.
  • UniGe ATLAS members can request access for grid storage in the Bern grid site. Request to be added to the "atlas/ch" group in your VOMS dashboard.


  • 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.