PhD students are represented at different levels at EPFL. These pages are meant to help you understand who your representatives are, their role and how to contact them.
PhD student representatives and delegates
PhD student representatives are the main interface between the Doctoral School and Doctoral Programs and PhD students. A PhD student representative is elected by the PhD students of each doctoral program. PhD delegates can also be elected to assist the PhD representative in their tasks. The mandate lasts for 2 years.
The main roles are:
- Participation in the meetings of the doctoral program committee
- Participation in the doctoral commission meetings (Cdoct)
- Participation in the biannual meeting with the direction of the Doctoral school
- Liaison person between the doctoral school and programme and PhD students
- Organization of events
- Course suggestion
PhD students in EPFL elected bodies
PhD candidates are represented in different elected bodies of EPFL.
The School Assembly and the Schools Councils are formed on a equal representation basis. It means that the different EPFL corps (professors and senior scientists, scientific staff, technical and administrative staff, and students) are represented by the same number of elected members. Elections are held once every two years, usually in May-June. PhD candidates are part of the scientific staff corps (“corps intermédiaire“, in French), which includes all scientific and teaching staff, except professors and senior scientists (MER) who belong to a separate corps.
These bodies do not have any decisional power. However, they are consulted before any decision concerning the EPFL and the schools is enforced and have the right of proposition. They also regularly meet EPFL senior management.
The role of PolyDoc
One of the goals of our association is representing the PhD students to the EPFL in collaboration with the PhD representation groups.
The representation coordinator is in charge of keeping in contact with the PhD students representatives and members elected in the different EPFL bodies, to follow up on all relevant discussions concerning PhD students.
PolyDoc hosts a Slack channel with all PhD representatives from different bodies to enhance the communication between them, and invites the new representatives to join as soon as there is an election.