Course information
Credit Allocation – EDCE Doctoral Program
Please refer to the EDCE regulations for detailed information on credit allocation.
General Rules
- You must obtain 12 ECTS credits from Master and doctoral semester courses offered at EPFL or ETH Zurich (ETHZ).
- For courses taken at ETHZ, you must:
- submit a Request for equivalence, see below, to have the credits registered at EPFL, and
- register yourself at ETHZ
- 8 credits must be pre-approved by your thesis director.
- 4 credits are free choice.
- Bachelor-level courses are not eligible for credit.
- A maximum of 4 credits may be obtained from transversal skills courses.
Courses Taken at Other Universities
Courses taken at other universities—including short courses and summer or winter schools—must be pre-approved by both the thesis director and the director of the doctoral program. No credits will be granted without prior approval.
Please submit your request well in advance of the course start date. After receiving approval from EDCE, you are responsible for registering for the external course yourself.
Note that the number of ECTS credits proposed by the course organizer may differ from the number of credits awarded by the doctoral program:
- EDCE awards 1 ECTS credit per week of course
- No credits are granted for courses shorter than one week.
- Doctoral and Master semester courses (excluding summer and winter schools) taken at ETH Zurich are awarded the same number of credits as listed on your ETHZ credit register.
The request for equivalence is available in ServiceNow:
https://support.epfl.ch/
Requests → Education → Doctoral candidate → Equivalence EDOC for credits
Credits cannot be obtained for conferences, seminars, symposiums, workshops, internships, or similar activities.
Credits will be awarded only after receipt of an official transcript confirming that:
- an exam was passed (a certificate of participation is not sufficient), and
- the exact number of proposed ECTS credits is clearly stated.
I have a 4 year Bachelor degree and have to take extra credits, what are the rules?
We request 8 additional credits in the first year, in addition to the standard 4 first-year credits, resulting in a total of 12 credits for the first year and 20 credits over the duration of the PhD. The thesis director must submit a proposal outlining the planned courses to the EDCE office at the start of the doctoral program. This proposal must be approved by the program director.
EDCE external course list
These are lists of courses followed by oher EDCE Phd students, its main purpose is to help you find interesting courses that you can’t find at EPFL
Statistics
| Course name | Location |
| Applied analysis of variance and experimental design | ETHZ |
| Applied Statistical Regression | ETHZ |
| Applied statistics for Ph.D students | University of Zürich |
| Designing experiments on the hyporheic zone | University of Birmingham |
| Environmental data mining | UNIL |
| Introduction to statistics | Swiss institute of bioinformatics |
| Méthodes statistiques: théories et applications | UNIL |
| Statistics for experimental research | ETHZ |
| Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of numerical models | DTU, Denmark |
| Using R for Data Analysis and Graphics | ETHZ |
| Introduction to spatial analysis of ecological data using R | PR statistics head-office, Glasgow, scotland |
Specialized experimental methods
| Course name | Location |
| 3D Vision | ETHZ |
| Combining Structural & Analytical Investigations of Matter at the Micro-, nano- and Atomic Scales | CCMX, Lausanne |
| Cook and look: Synchroton techniques | ETHZ |
| DIA/SWATH course, Mass spectrometry | ETHZ |
| Ecole d’automne de techniques laser pour la mécanique de fluides | La Rochelle, FR |
| Mass spectrometry School in Biotechnology and Medicine | Dubrovnik, summer school |
| Microbial biofilm techniques | DTU, Denmark |
| Modern mass spectrometry, Hyphenated methods, and chemometrics | ETHZ |
| Sampling in hyporheic zones, in situ measurement techniques | University of Birmingham |
| Spectroscopy of the earth system | University of Zürich |
Economics
| Course name | Location |
| Computable general equilibrium in climate and energy economics | UNIBE |
| Environmental crisis and society change | UNIL |
| Swiss program for beginning of doctoral studies in economic macroeconomics | Study center Gerzensee |
| Swiss program for beginning of doctoral studies in economic microeconomics | Study center Gerzensee |
General Civil and Environmental Engineering courses
| Course name | Location |
| Aerosol I: Physical and Chemical principles | ETHZ |
| Analysis of climate and weather data | ETHZ |
| Arctic environmental toxicology | University center in Svalbard, Norway |
| Atmospheric general circulation dynamics | ETHZ |
| Boundary Layer Meteorology | ETHZ |
| Concrete with Supplementary cementitious materials | DTU, Lyngby, Denmark |
| Current topics in Grassland Sciences | ETHZ |
| DGPT Molecular cell toxicology | Zurich University |
| Environmental and Human Health Risk Assessment of Chemicals | ETHZ |
| Environmental systems analysis | EAWAG, summer school, switzerland |
| EURO Ph.D school on routing and logistics | University of Brescia, Italy |
| Fragrance chemistry | ETHZ |
| Frontiers in plant sciences, application of stable isotopes in plant sciences | ETHZ |
| Geomonitoring and Geosensors | ETHZ |
| Global change biology | ETHZ |
| Hypobasics | Leibniz institue of freshwater ecology and inland fisheries, Berlin |
| Infectious disease dynamics | ETHZ |
| Marges arides | UNIL |
| Material recovery methods and Technologies | FHNW, Muttenz, CH |
| Mechanical and Physics of fracture: Multi-scale Modeling of the failure behaviour of Solids | International center for Mechanical Sciences, Udine, Italy |
| Microbiology and disposal of radioactive waste | ETHZ |
| Modern pesticides – Mode of action, Residus and Environmental Fate | ETHZ |
| Nanomaterials in the Environment | ETHZ |
| Physical chemistry | ETHZ |
| Physical Limnology | University of Heidelberg |
| Physics as a basis for modeling | UNIL |
| Plant-atmosphere interactions in a changing climate | Göteborgs universitet, Sweden |
| Project INFRASTAR fatigue and risk analysis of structures | BAM, Berlin |
| Quantitative flow visualization | ETHZ |
| Quantitative microbial risk assessment | Michigan State University, USA |
| Resevoir Geomechanics | Stanford university |
| Seismic response and analysis of structures | UME school Pavia, Italy |
| Selected chapters in Bioinformatics | UNIGE |
| Shaping the energy transition | SCCER school, Switzerland |
| Snowcover: physics and modeling | ETHZ |
| Summer school of fluvial geomorphology | ETHZ |
| System models in life cycle assessment, summer school | ETHZ |
| Tropospheric Chemistry | ETHZ |
| Virology: Principles of molecular biology, pathogenesis and control of human viruses | University of Zürich |
| Virus-host Interactions | UNIL |
| Visions for sustainable agriculture | UNINE |
| Water resources and drinking water | ETHZ |
| Winter school on the observation and modeling of high-latitude and Arctic Clouds | Finland |
EDCE external transversal skills list
| Course name | Location |
| Discovering management | ETHZ |
| Environmental communication teaching | Campus virtual ISM, Spain |
| Reading in environmental thinking | ETHZ |
| Research ethics | ETHZ |
| Responsible conduct in research | ETHZ |
Interesting sites for courses:
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
EMBO – Excellence in the life sciences.
This list includes doctoral courses only, master courses are not listed.
All external courses are subject to approval by the thesis director and the doctoral school. Contact the EDCE office for all external courses.
Listed credits may not correspond to the number of credits awarded by EPFL.
Check if an equivalent course at EPFL exists.
Courses on the list may not longer be taught.