Thesis defense procedures - What to do when

The thesis defense usually takes place between 3-5 years after the enrollment in the doctoral program.
Please carefully read the documents below listing details on the end-of-thesis and defense procedures that vary between universities and faculties.

• What to do and to keep in mind when you reach the end of your thesis done at UNIL (deadlines, adresses etc): an overview done by LNDS

• A short check-list is also provided by the doctoral school secretariat
• and a template to announce your thesis defense jury once you are submitting your thesis (if not already done)

• Template for the thesis title page for PhD candidates attached to the FBM

• Template for the thesis title page for PhD candidates attached to the SSP

• Important as of February 2017: You need to order your PhD degree electronically by filling in the on-line order form available on “MyUNIL” more or less in parellel to the deposit the final version of your thesis at the BCU. The paper form "Coammande de grade" cannot be accepted anymore!!!!

• After you have successfully passed your final exams, you need to order your PhD diploma and deposit your thesis at the BCU together with 3 bound copies of the final version of your thesis (incl. the imprimatur). All steps are summerized under point 7 of the "Thesis milestones".

• What to do and to keep in mind when you reach the end of your thesis at Unige (deadlines, adresses etc): an overview done by LNDS

• Template to prepare your thesis title page in doc-format

• Link to template for preparing your thesis title page (in tex-format; by courtesy of K. Emmert)

• Example of how the thesis title page should look like with all necessary logos

• For your introductory exam, have form filled and signed by the jury and send the original to the secretariat of your faculty after the exam. Jury signatures must be original, no scans or copies are accepted by the faculty! Please send a copy of the filled form to the LNDS coordinator to receive your LNDS thesis number for final manuscript submission.

• For the public defense (soutenance de thèse) of students at the Faculty of Sciences or Medicine: have the form filled and signed by the jury and send it to the secretariat of your faculty. Again, only original signatures are accepted, no scans or copies!

• For the public defense (soutenance de thèse) of FPSE students: have the form filled and signed by the jury and send it to the secretariat of your faculty. Again, only original signatures are accepted, no scans or copies!

Please find here some more links to Unige websites regarding thesis defense procedures in general, e.g.

• What to do and which time line to keep before the public defense
• What to do after the public defense and regarding the deposit of the final thesis version for archiving
• Potentially important contacts at the Science Faculty

Here is also a link to the free software to help you with grammar and style checking during thesis (and paper) writing.

• Unige information brochure about thesis submission procedures in general

Depot_des_theses.pdf  (45 Ko)

You can replace the methods and results section of your thesis with articles only if you have at least one article published or accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Your contribution must be significant for an article to be considered as part of your thesis. Reviews cannot be used to replace any part of your thesis.  Each thesis project is different. Sometimes, a chain of experiments leads to a publication in a high-impact journal; sometimes a discovery is dispersed across several publications ....

Please read the document below for more information, but contact to LNDS coordinator to inquire on specific aspects and in case of doubts whether your work is eligible for a thesis based on articles.

Writing_a_thesis_with_articles.pdf  (124 Ko)