EDME Annual Report

The Doctoral School, in collaboration with the doctoral programs and the doctoral students’ representatives, has revised the annual report procedure in order to:

  • harmonize it between doctoral programs
  • facilitate its process and follow-up
  • meet the strategic needs of the Doctoral School (training and supervision)

 

In order to evaluate the progress of the thesis or the knowledge of the PhD student, the thesis director (and co-director if applicable) and the PhD student meet once a year to prepare a report.

The information is entered into an online tool that will generate a final PDF document as a report.

Access to the online tool is via a link sent by your doctoral program and connection with your GASPAR account (or Guest account for co-directors outside EPFL).

Your doctoral program assistant will send you the link by email near the time your annual report is due for submission.

Annual report’s process

Each year, at the end of September, starting within the year after the Candidacy exam, you have to submit an annual report to your thesis director(s) on the state of progress of your work. (art. 10 of the Ordinance on the doctorate ).

To prepare your report, you will receive the link to the online tool  approx. 1 month before your annual report is due.

In the online tool, you are requested to fill in 3 sections with the information below:

  • your basic information;
  • your research progress;
  • and a self-assessment of your progress: this section is completed separately by you and your thesis directors, then discussed during a meeting (collaborative review)

EDME does not accept that you upload a PDF appendix to the report.

To include your mentor in the process is optional. 

The report will be sent to the director of your doctoral program for verification if:

  • it is rated as: Need some improvement or Unsatisfactory;
  • you disagree with the content of the report.

Please note that the content you fill in is not confidential and will be revealed to all parties after the independent self-assessment and once the process is completed. At the end of the process, everyone involved will receive a PDF version of the report by email.

Annual report’s deadlines

End of August, you will receive an e-mail from EDME to start the annual report process.

You will have 2 months to complete it.

Should you have any questions:
Annual report’s process

Once your PhD student completed the annual report, you will be requested by email to connect to the online tool to review the information provided and complete your progress evaluation.

Please note that the content you fill in is not confidential and will be available to all parties at the time of the annual report meeting and once the process is completed.

You will then be asked by email to arrange a face-to-face meeting with your PhD student (and the co-director if applicable) to review the information, discuss goals achieved and planned, and evaluate overall progress.

During this collaborative review, you, as thesis director, will be able to access the content to be edited and completed.

The report will be sent to the director of the candidate’s doctoral program for verification if:

  • it is rated as: Need some improvement or Unsatisfactory;
  • the doctoral candidate disagrees with the content of the report.

If the report is rated as Unsatisfactory or the doctoral candidate disagrees with the content, a meeting between the doctoral candidate and the supervisor(s) should be arranged to seek appropriate measures to resolve possible problems and conflicts and suggest measures to improve the performance. If needed the program director can be invited to this meeting.

Please note that the information is not stored in the online tool.

Should you have any questions: