Graduate School for Health Sciences (GHS)

Financial Aid

The Graduate School for Health Sciences may offer financial support to enable doctoral candidates to attend conferences or special courses.

The ability of the GHS to provide financial aid depends on the resources allocated to the GHS from the University at any time.

The GHS works within a 5-year budget, which currently does not reflect the sharp increase of the number of students. This situation requires some adjustments in financial aid management for the years 2023 and 2024.

Due to these financial constraints, the GHS steering board decided to reduce the financial aid provided to max 500 CHF per student per year.

This amount will be provided as long as we have the resources available. The principle by which financial aid will be awarded will be "first come, first served." Only courses and conferences that meet the GHS recognition requirements can be financed (see here for more information). 

To better cover the requests across the whole year, this amount will be divided in two parts and made available to students at the beginning of each semester: from January to June and from July to December, respectively.

Please consider your planning carefully, as you can only apply once per semester (either in the spring or in the autumn) for financial aid for a total of 500 CHF per year. Applications that are not granted in the spring, cannot be re-submitted in the autumn.

Thank you for your understanding.

Type of Financial Aid

Conference

Prerequisites

  1. Presentation (talk or poster) as first and presenting author.
  2. Applications for financial  aid for conference participation must be submitted to the GHS before the conference.
  3. Requests for support received after the event will not be considered.

Application for Financial Aid for Participation in Conferences 

Documents to be submitted to the GHS before the conference:

  1. The form Application for Financial Aid
  2. A copy of the abstract
  3. The confirmation letter of the conference organizers (acceptance Email is fine as well)
  4. Program of the Conference

Refunding

  1. For reimbursements by the GHS, the institutes of the Inselspital and the UPD send the following documents to the Finance Office of the University of Bern, within one month after the event:

    Complete documents can either be sent by regular mail to the invoice address above, or can be submitted electronically as one single PDF file to kreditoren@unibe.ch.

    • Invoice from the applicant's institute, containing a list of all expenses, with foreign currencies converted to CHF, and addressed to:
      Universität Bern
      Zentraler Rechnungseingang
      Hochschulstrasse 6
      3012 Bern
      VERY IMPORTANT: The invoice must include the reference REF-200-41 (exact spelling required)
    • Copies of receipts, giving evidence of the effective costs
    • Copy of conference certificate
  2. For reimbursements by the GHS, all other institutes of the University of Bern enter the invoice in eforms under Transfer Posting and Internal Billing / Ihr Institut kann die Rechnung in eforms unter Umbuchung und interne Verrechnung erfassen: https://eforms.unibe.ch/ within one month after the event. Credit reference is 200-41
    It is mandatory to also upload a list of all expenses, with foreign currencies converted to CHF, copies of receipts, giving evidence of the effective costs and a copy of course certificate
  3. Later submissions will not be considered for refunding.
  4. Contributions of the GHS will only be remitted to an official bank account of the University (i.e., applicant's institute), not to a private bank account.
  5. Covered are travel costs, registration costs, accommodation costs. Poster costs are not covered.

Special Course

Prerequisites

  1. Participation in special courses must have been specifically agreed upon with the Thesis Advisor.
  2. A course certificate from the organizers must be presented to the GHS after the event.
  3. If no official course certificate is issued by the organizers, PhD candidates must use the GHS Course Certificate (PDF, 156KB) and have it signed by the course organizers.
  4. A program of the course has to be provided.
  5. Applications for financial aid for participation in a special course must be submitted to the GHS before the start of the course.
  6. Requests for support received after the event will not be considered.

Application for Financial Aid  for Participation in Special Courses

Documents to be submitted to the GHS before the special course:

  1. The form Application for Financial Aid (PDF, 251KB)
  2. The official program or description of the special course
  3. The written recommendation of the Thesis Advisor
  4. The confirmation letter of the course organizers (confirmatin Email of the organizers is fine as well)

Refunding

  1. For reimbursements by the GHS, the institutes of the Inselspital and the UPD send the following documents to the Finance Office of the University of Bern, within one month after the event:

    Complete documents can either be sent by regular mail to the invoice address above, or can be submitted electronically as one single PDF file to kreditoren@unibe.ch.

    • Invoice from the applicant's institute, containing a list of all expenses, with foreign currencies converted to CHF, and addressed to:
      Universität Bern
      Zentraler Rechnungseingang
      Hochschulstrasse 6
      3012 Bern
      VERY IMPORTANT: The invoice must include the reference REF-200-41 (exact spelling required)
    • Copies of receipts, giving evidence of the effective costs
    • Copy of course certificate
  2. For reimbursements by the GHS, all other institutes of the University of Bern enter the invoice in eforms under Transfer Posting and Internal Billing / Ihr Institut kann die Rechnung in eforms unter Umbuchung und interne Verrechnung erfassen: https://eforms.unibe.ch/ within one month after the event. Credit reference is 200-41
    It is mandatory to also upload a list of all expenses, with foreign currencies converted to CHF, copies of receipts, giving evidence of the effective costs and a copy of course certificate
  3. Later submissions will not be considered for refunding.
  4. Contributions of the GHS will only be remitted to an official bank account of the University (i.e., applicant's institute), not to a private bank account.

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