Faculty of Humanities

Completion

You are about to hand in your dissertation and sign up for the oral exam. Congratulations: your scientific education is almost complete, you will be a PhD soon.

A little bit of administration remains to be done:

Registration for the oral exam and handing in the dissertation

The dates for registration and handing in the dissertation are in May and November, for the exact dates please check the "Exam dates" below.

On this day, please hand over one sample of the dissertation each to your first and second supervisor and the dean's office.

At the dean's office, you also hand in the following documents: "Registration form for PhD exam (PDF, 26KB)", "Dissertation declaration (PDF, 20KB)", "Confirmation first examiner (DOCX, 79KB)", a CV, an enrollment confirmation from the previous semester, and an exam fee transfer receipt.

Enrollment

You do not have to be enrolled for the semester in which the oral exam takes place.

Deadline extension

In exceptional cases, the Collegium decanale can allow a deadline extension. There is an: application form.

Be careful: this means your supervisors will have less time to write their expertises. Please inform the supervisors that however both expertises must reach the Dean's office at the latest at the destined deadline. If the deadline is missed, your oral exam will automatically switch to the following semester!

Exam fee

The exam fee is CHF 300.- For another CHF 388.- you can get an extra big diploma in Latin (43x61cm, paper 100g/m² or strong paper 240g/m², 2 copies - preview).

You can pay the fee with a credit slip (you can get one at the Dean's office) or via e-banking. If you choose the second, please add: "Exam fee dissertation (name, first name)".

Berner Kantonalbank
3001 Bern
PC: 30-106-9
Account No.: 42 3.117.124.22
Clearing-No: 790
IBAN: CH68 0079 0042 3117 1242 2
BIC/SWIFT: KBBECH22XXX

Philosophisch-historische Fakultät
Dekanat
Länggassstrasse 49
3000 Bern 9

External second supervisors - exam authorization

If you choose external professors or assistant professors without habilitation, they need an exam authorization. It must be handed in at the Dean's office at the registration for the oral exam at the very latest. HKB teachers with a PhD can examine GSAH students as second supervisors.

Defense

The timeslots for the defense are in the PDFs below "Prüfungstermine". Before the sessions, the Dean's office sends a green grade sheet to the institutes, one for each defense. The supervisors fill it in after the Disputatio and send it back to the Dean's office which confirms the dissertation process is complete.

The candidates schedule the defense in cooperation with the first and second supervisor, the institutes organize an observer. To save time and travel expenses, the second supervisors can take part via live transmission. The first supervisor and observer guarantee the defense's immediacy, the minutes must also bear the second supervisors comments. We suggest to inform the phd candidates so they can perpare themselves to the special circumstances.

The written reports may be handed over to the candidates directly after the oral exam.

Publication

After publication, it will take some weeks until the diploma is ready. Please provide the Dean's office with the address you want the diploma sent to (only within Switzerland and Liechtenstein) or with detailed information about the shipping process (at your expense, if shipped abroad).

Publication

There are three different ways to publish your dissertation. You are allowed to bear the title "Dr. phil."  only after the dissertation is published, before you may only use the "Dr. des.". The dissertation must be published within two years. If you cannot meet this deadline, please write an informal email that explains why you need more time. Please name the date of your promotion and the title of your dissertation.

If your supervisors ask you to modify the text before publication, please do so and show them the text for release. We assume that we only get copies that are released for publication.
 

1. Electronical publication

You can publish an e-version at a publisher's. Please provide the dean's office with the contract.

You can also hand in an electronical version of your dissertation (PDF) at the main library (UB). Please follow this process, please note:

  • the PDF with the full text must contain a note regarding the online license
  • the CD-ROM must contain an abstract of the dissertation (as additional PDF)
  • also add the signed declaration that you want your dissertation to be published at the UB servers

Please be aware:

  • that the delivery of the printed / CD-Rom  version of your dissertation is omitted
  • that it might be difficult to publish a printed book after you published an e-version of your dissertation.
     

2. Publication of printed versions or CDs

Please hand in either 8 CD-Rom or 9 printed versions of your dissertation at the University main office:

Universität Bern
Generalsekretariat
Hochschulstrasse 6
CH-3012 Bern
Tel. +41 31 631 82 55

Please read the information sheet and carefully follow the instructions. Do not forget the additional information sheet.

The copies are then distributed as follows: central libraries of the universities in Bern, Swiss national library Bern, universities Zürich, Fribourg, Genf, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Luzern and Ticino.

 

3. Publication via publisher

Please hand in a contract with a publisher's at the Dean's office.

We wish you all the best for your graduation.

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