Last update: July 2024
One or more representative are 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 until the earlier of 2 years or the date of graduation.
The main roles are:
- Participation in the meetings of the doctoral program committee (deals with matters specific to your program)
- Participation in the doctoral commission meetings CDoct (deals with matters related to all PhD students)
- 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
More info can be found on the EDOC website, where a list of the PhD student representatives is available per doctoral program.
Contact us
If you have any points you’d like to raise, questions etc. don’t hesitate to reach us:
- PhD representatives coordinators Camille Rolland and Nikita Norkin
- Doctoral program representatives
What we do
📣Topics we want to raise
We take part to EPFL-organized working groups, or set-up our own working groups on the following topics:
- Restauration
- Satellite campus
- Systemic Issues in Academia
- Mental-Health
- TA-ing
📍Our strategy
We present each of our points to diverse structures at EPFL in the same way:
- What do we want to change?
- What’s the current state of things?
- How do you think we should change it?
Each of these point is very important. Failing to properly answer question 2 can delay discussions and cost valuable time to different parties. Failing to find a realistic answer to question 3 can unfortunately lead to failing to provide a solution at all.
Last updates
🧑🍳Restauration
Discussion on-going with Bruno Rossignol (Restauration Head)
1. Gluten Allergies
What do we want to change?
🍽️ Make gluten free options always available and nourishing enough
What’s the current state of things?
🍽️ Celiacs are forced to jump between cafeterias, eat non-complete meals, or go home
🍽️ Kitchen staff is not educated about what gluten-free means
How should we change it ?
🍽️ Simple gluten-free options are not hard to make
🍽️ Educating the staff goes a long way
Bruno’s answer:
♟️ EPFL is paying to educate the the staff from the three biggest restaurants: Piano, FoodLab and Hopper. From September 2024, there will be one gluten free option in each of these big restaurants.
2. Food allergies
What do we want to change?
🍽️ Have reliable allergen information on campus and in the EPFL campus app
What’s the current state of things?
🍽️ Allergens are not always correctly input/omitted from the allergen lists
🍽️ Allergens are not input into the campus app
How should we change it ?
🍽️ We will contact EPFL campus app to update their interface in order to allow the addition of allergen information
Bruno’s answer:
♟️ NutriMenu is an in-development tool in charge of analysing the different menus proposed in each of the restaurants at EPFL. In Switzerland there 14 recognised allergies, 6 of them are not yet registered into NutriMenu. Gluten information should be reliable from June 2024.
3. Food price
What do we want to change?
🍽️ The meal prices for PhD students
What’s the current state of things?
🍽️ Right now, PhD students are under-utilising the restaurants on campus
🍽️ The PhD meal prices are high, especially in comparison to the staff prices who usually have a higher salary.
How should we change it ?
🍽️ One option would be to increase the prices for the staff, to allow a decrease for PhD students
Bruno’s answer:
♟️ Right now, there are plans of changing the way restaurants are operating within EPFL. Depending on what project goes forward, decreases in price could be possible. For now, it is impossible to make any changes. 1) the increase of electricity costs has made the business barely profitable. 2) All food prices have been established for a period of 4 years, which ends in October 2025. For the foodtrucks, the next tender for food trucks will be done in September 2024.
4. Miscellaneous
🍽️ Not enough food ?
Bruno’s answer:
♟️ In the three largest restaurants, you can always ask for seconds, on the conditions that you will eat it on site, and that no protein will be a part of the second serving.
🍽️ After 13:00 or 13:15, the most popular options aren’t available anymore
Bruno’s answer:
♟️ In an effort to reduce CO2 emissions and waste, restaurants need to plan their meal quantities appropriately, which sometimes results in a shortage of certain options, but not all options.
🍽️ There is a lack of food diversity on satellite campuses
Bruno’s answer:
♟️ Unfortunately, Bruno is not in charge of Agora, Sion or Geneva, but he is willing to have a talk with the heads of restaurations there for us!
Here are the way you can help change things in the right directions:
- Contact Nikita Norkin, the head of the representative working group for restauration, to join the working group, raise a point, or ask questions
- Contact ACIDE to inquire about vacancies on the food steering committee or restauration commission
- Fill in the food satisfaction survey in 2024 !
🛰️ Satellite issues
Discussion with Annalisa Buffa (Vice President for Post Graduate Education) and Philip Mair (deputy for Vice President for Post Graduate Education).
We aim to improve the experience for our PhD community across the Geneva, Neuchatel, Sion, and Fribourg campuses by addressing issues related to food access
, travel expenses 
, teaching responsibilities 
and access to sports facilities
, and by organizing social events
.What’s the current state of things?Currently, students face several challenges:
- : Limited and costly food options at some campuses.
- : Satellite students from some departments are paying out of pocket for train rides to the main campus to attend classes, and many often miss seminars and social events organized by school associations due to uncovered travel costs.
- : Teaching Assistant (TA) duties and teaching loads are not well-adjusted to accommodate satellite students (i.e., travel time compensation), leading to additional burdens.
: Limited or no access to sports facilities.- : Fewer social events on satellite campuses while missing out on the ones at the main campus.
We propose the following solutions and are/are trying to be in contact with responsible personnel:
- : Collaborate with food service managers to offer better and more affordable food options.
- : Advocate for the coverage of travel expenses for satellite students, enabling better participation in main campus activities.
- : Adjust TA duties to reduce the teaching load and/or compensate for travel time in consultation with the respective doctoral schools.
- : Improve access to sports facilities, for example, by collaborating with other universities for access to classes at a reduced price.
- : Organize more social events at satellite campuses to build a more inclusive community.
to help us improve your experience at the satellite campuses. You can also reach out to the working group members for your campus listed below. We’re always looking for new members—if you’re interested in supporting our satellite campuses, we’d love to hear from you!- Kanaha Shoji (EDCE)
- Leonardo Pollina (EDEE)
- Fabienne Windel (EDNE)
- Amir Jamili (EDAM)
- Noémie Jeannin (EDEY)
- Elizaveta Sharaborova (EDCE)
👤Systemic Issues in Academia
What do we want to change?
🌱 Create a healthy environment where reporting issues does not backfire on PhD students
What’s the current state of things?
🌱 A climate survey has been conducted in Architecture and revealed concerning issues within the faculty. That survey consisted in lawyers being available for one hour either in person or on zoom for each student or staff to complain or express themselves about the problems within their school. They then compiled a report from all the statements gathered.
🌱 There are no anonymous fields in the annual report
🌱 Lab changes are often tedious
How should we change it ?
🌱 Conduct an external audit/climate survey in all of the schools, to understand the problems of each doctoral programmes better
Annalisa’s answer:
♟️ They were not aware yet of this survey, but mentioned that the mental health survey which went into a working group mentioned climate. They will get more information on the survey and come back to us.
Mental Health
What do we want to change? We are dedicated to enhancing and expanding the mental health resources available to PhD students at EPFL. We are committed to creating a supportive and safe environment for all PhD students at EPFL, helping them to reconcile their academic challenges with their personal life.
What’s the current state of things? The last survey about mental health and well-being (2022) has shown that there are still conditions to improve at EPFL. There are many initiatives and resources within EPFL to both prevent and tackle mental health issues. However, not the entire population of PhD students seems to be aware of them. Task Force Mental Health & Well-Being is an initiative to develop a mental health strategy that can address the difficulties faced by all the members of the EPFL community. This naturally includes the PhD population.
How are we helping? Our primary goal is to raise awareness within the PhD community about the various support tools and resources they can access to ensure their well-being throughout their academic journey. We aim to identify and promote best practices within individual PhD programs and extend them across the entire PhD community. By working from a local to a global level, we aim that effective support systems are accessible to everyone. In collaboration with the Task Force Mental Health & Well-Being, we intend to coordinate and maximize the impact of our actions. Additionally, recognizing that mental health intersects with many aspects of PhD life, we work closely with other working groups, such as the Systematic Issues, to comprehensively cover the needs of all the PhD students
👥 Engagement
As PhD reps, we make a point to listen to you and raise your issues to the different instances at EPFL.
One of our priorities is to raise engagement in representation. If you could fill this form to tell us about what would make you feel more involved, it would be great!