Timeline of Graduation

• Initiation of the PhD graduation procedure
• Application for the admission of external expert, if not approved before
• Submission of reports of Primary and Secondary Advisor and external expert
• Suggestion for PhD Defense Chair (member of grouping 1) is welcome
2 weeks before the meeting of the PhD Board
• Evaluation of reports, eventually request for further reportsAt the meeting of the PhD Board
• PhD defense 
• ExmatriculationCandidates are required to exmatriculate after passing their PhD defense
• Submission of depositary copies of the dissertation
• Entitlement to hold academic title Dr. sc. med. (PhD)
To be completed within two years after PhD defense

Approval of manuscript

At the end of your PhD you submit the manuscript of your PhD thesis at the secretary of the deanship with the following documents

PhD Defense

After the approval of the manuscript you can set up the PhD defense with your PhD committee. The chairperson leads the defense including a short presentation of the PhD project (20 min) and its discussion by the PhD committee (30 min) and the public.

Submission of PhD Thesis

Finally, you are required to submit the three hard copies of the PhD Thesis to the University of Basel within two years after the PhD Defense.

Delivery policy (English/German) 

Title page 

Instructions for electronic submission

Criteria for external experts

The external expert is supposed to provide an independent report on the PhD thesis of the candidate. Thus, he or she should be an active researcher in the field of the thesis, but not a recent partner of the research team of the candidate (no common publications within the last five years). The expert is an experienced researcher with a reasonable publication track record working outside the University of Basel. Exception can be requested to the PhD Board.

Statement about Publications

The PhD Board of the Medical Faculty (Promotionsausschuss) emphasizes the importance of publishing as an essential part of PhD training at the Faculty of Medicine. Therefore, all publications in the context of the PhD study should be published in prestigious and established scientific journals with a high impact factor, i.e. in one of the leading journals of the research domain. The PhD Board of the Medical Faculty requests one first-author manuscript to be published or accepted for publication at the time of thesis submission. Two further manuscripts with the PhD student as first author have to be considered of such a quality by the student’s supervisor that their acceptance can be assumed. The PhD student and his/her advisor are advised not to publish the PhD thesis until the manuscripts are accepted and, if necessary, to request an extension of the graduation deadline, to prevent the manuscript publication be compromised by the publication of the doctoral thesis. 

Statement in German