All official rules and requirements are issued by the Faculty of Science, and the relevant information is found on their PhD studies website. The most important document is the “Promotionsordnung”, which defines all the official rules and regulations concerning your doctorate. This document only exists in German due to legal reasons, but you can contact the PhD office for an unofficial English translation.

The official forms and templates for documents displayed in the overview scheme are available for download from the PhD studies website (i.e. Application for external expert form, form for PhD reports, PhD application form, Doctoral agreement template). 

An overview of the milestones for your PhD studies can also be found in the “Guidelines” document on the PhD studies website or in the checklist provided by the PhD Program on this website. 

Before you can defend your thesis, you need to appoint an external expert and hand in your PhD application together with your dissertation manuscript, your doctoral agreement including the committee meeting notes, a written declaration of independent authorship, your CV, and your academic progress summary to the Dean's office of the Faculty of Science (diss.philnat@unibas.ch). The current wording that must be included in the written declaration of independent authorship is defined in the Promotionsordnung (in German, § 17d) and in the PhD Guidelines (in English, point 4) available on the faculty website. Simultaneously, you also send your dissertation manuscript together with the form for PhD reports to your PhD committee for evaluation of your thesis. 

The application for external expert MUST be submitted at least 8 weeks (but no earlier than 6 months), and the PhD application at least 4 weeks, before the Faculty assembly. If these documents are submitted later, your PhD application will only be evaluated during the next Faculty assembly! Please consult the Schedule Overview of Faculty assemblies early on, and be aware that Faculty assemblies only take place once a month and do NOT take place during semester breaks (i.e. no assemblies in July, August and January). So start planning early on with these deadlines in mind. 

Once the Faculty Assembly has approved of your PhD application, you can defend your thesis (so in principle you can defend on the first day after the Assembly). However, you must inform the Faculty in advance about the place, location, time, format and chairperson of your defence, so that they can prepare the required documents for your exam. The faculty will send these exam documents directly to the chairperson of your defence. The chairperson is a professor from the Department who will represent the Faculty during the defence. You can chose the chairperson yourself, so please contact your preferred chairperson early on to ensure they are available at the date and time of your defence.

The defence should take place no later than 6 months after the Faculty Assembly. The defence must last for at least one hour, and all the members of your PhD committee must be present (1^st supervisor, 2^nd supervisor, external expert). Online participation of external experts is also allowed. 

Once you have passed your defence, you will be awarded a grade and the title Dr. phil. designata/designatus. You will also receive an official document confirming you passed the doctoral exam a few days later.

The document you will receive after your defence is of a preliminary nature and does NOT represent your official PhD diploma! You will only get your diploma (and right to carry the official title Dr. phil / PhD) once you have submitted the final copies of your doctoral thesis both in print and online. Please consult the information on the PhD studies website on the requirements for the printed and online copies. You must hand in your final copies signed by your first supervisor no later than 2 years after your defence. Once you have done this, your PhD Diploma and Diploma Supplement (course list) will be sent to you by post, and you will also receive digital versions via services.unibas. 

Important: Until you have handed in the copies of the final version of your thesis, you only have a preliminary PhD diploma, which other institutions/countries might not recognize.