To complete the EDPO study plan, Doctoral Candidates must obtain 12 ECTS credits, including at least 4 ECTS credits during the first year, before the candidacy exam.
Credits from transversal skills courses do not count towards the minimum 4 ECTS required during the first year.
There are several ways to obtain these credits:
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- EPFL courses listed in the EDPO course book.
- Other EPFL doctoral courses, including transversal skills courses.
- Other EPFL Master-level courses.
- External courses, including summer and winter schools at Swiss or foreign universities, with prior aplproval from the EDPO Director. The credit equivalence is determined on a case-by-case basis.
Up to 4 ECTS can be chosen without prior approval. Additional EPFL doctoral courses require prior approval from the thesis director/supervisor.
No credits are granted for assistantship, participation in conferences or language courses. Workshops do not count towards EDPO credits.
The courses should contribute to the acquisition of new knowledge and be relevant to the Doctoral Candidate’s doctoral training.
You will find further information in the internal EDPO regulation:
How to register for a course?
EPFL courses
For all EPFL courses, you must register via IS-Academia.
For Bachelor/Master courses, registration is not possible after the deadline, which is two weeks after the beginning of the semester at the latest. An exception is made for Doctoral Candidates who have just started their PhD and are not yet enrolled.
If you need help with registration, please contact the administrative assistant.
External courses
Before registering for an external course, Doctoral Candidates should contact [email protected] to confirm that the course can be recognised for EDPO credits. Please include the course programme in your request.
External courses must include an examination. For external courses without an examination, the PhD supervisor is responsible for organising an exam or equivalent evaluation to validate the credits.
Once the course has been approved, a request for ECTS recognition must be submitted via ServiceNow no later than 30 days after the end of the course, including the examination. Please select “Request – Equivalence” and attach the certificate of attendance.
New requests submitted using the previous equivalence form will no longer be accepted.
Have you any suggestion for summer/winter schools
If you are aware about a Summer or Winter School that could be of any interest to the photonics community, kindly send an email with the details to EDPO’s administrative assistant.