The Medical Faculty offers PhD degrees in the following subjects. PhD programs support the PhD education additionally. 

Duration: 3-4 years
Requirement: Master’s degree relevant to the discipline

The PhD students benefit from a high level training during the PhD and are prepared for their careers at an advanced level. The required coursework of 12 ECTS will provide the students with the necessary theoretical background and the supervised thesis will offer the students hands-on experience on how to conduct challenging research.

Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineering is the application of natural science principles and techniques to the medical field. It seeks to close the gap between basic science and clinical applications leading to challenging interdisciplinary research. As a result, successful PhD-projects in biomedical engineering have generally a high impact on the technological developments in patient treatment.

Biomedical Ethics

The PhD in Biomedical ethics is a specialized program in bioethics.  It offers advanced training in empirical bioethics through tailored activities and is aimed at providing students with the methodological tools used to approach and resolve ethical and policy-related biomedical questions and dilemmas that arise in medicine and the life sciences.

Clinical Research

The PhD in Clinical Research is a program that includes a wide variety of clinical disciplines. Students carry out clinical studies in established clinical research groups to answer questions about therapy, prevention, diagnosis or prognosis of patients. Basic and advanced training in clinical epidemiology/health research methodology complement the empirical work.

Medicines Development

The PhD Program in Medicine Development focuses on the discovery and development of new medicines, clinical trial methodology, good clinical practice and ethics, pharmacovigilance and epidemiology, biostatistics, regulatory affairs, health economics, project management, marketing and new therapeutic approaches. Research projects are conducted in a theoretical framework. Please note that we do not have any open positions until the end of 2026.

Nursing Science

The PhD Program in Nursing Science offers training in advanced quantitative and qualitative research methods as well as implementation science methods. The program builds on strong multidisciplinary educational and research infrastructures available at the University of Basel.
Research at the Institute of Nursing Science focuses on innovative models of care and quality of care and prepares academic nurse leaders for future healthcare challenges.

Public Health/Epidemiology

The PhD Program in Epidemiology/Public Health addresses dynamic clusters of cross-cutting public health topics. It focuses on a range of methods, diseases, environmental and ecological, genetic and biological, and socio-cultural topics, life styles, and health systems to efficiently approach public health and prevention.

Sport Science

Sport Science includes a variety of disciplines such as sports medicine, exercise physiology, human movement science, sport and exercise psychology, sport pedagogy, etc. Research can be basic or applied, target healthy or clinical populations, take place in general, clinical, occupational or educational settings, and focus on primary, secondary or tertiary prevention.