Publications and PhD Thesis

A cumulative PhD thesis must include:

  • the three published or submitted papers

  • an "umbrella", which comprises a detailed introduction of the topic of the dissertation, a comprehensive discussion, a curriculum vitae with a list of publications, and a copyright declaration.

As written in the GHS regulations, a doctoral candidate is required to submit at least three scientific papers to peer-reviewed journals. The following guidelines should be followed:

  • One paper for which the candidate is the first author must be accepted for publication. In case of a first shared authorship, two papers with a shared authorship are required.
  • Two further papers for which the candidate is the first author or co-author must have reached the peer-review stage.
  • Please note that study protocols or letters to the editors will not be recognized as the three publications needed as a part of the PhD thesis.

Requests to deviate from the number and types of papers needed for publication under special circumstances can be submitted to the Steering Board.

Candidates are asked to indicate the status of their publications: (P) = published; (A) = accepted; (R) = in revision; (S) = submitted, as well as the type of the publications: (OA) = original article; (SM) = systematic review; (MA) = meta-analysis (NR) = narrative review.

Add your affiliation to the Graduate School for Health Sciences on the PhD publications

Next to the affiliation of your home institute, remember to add the affiliation to the Graduate School for Health Sciences (GHS) in order to facilitate subsequent searches for GHS publications.

On all your PhD publications, the affiliation to the GHS should be indicated as: «Graduate School for Health Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland».

Register GHS Publications in Boris

PhD candidates of the GHS must register all their academic publications in BORIS (Bern Open Repository and Information System).

To register your publication, log in on the BORIS platform with your University of Bern campus account.

Search for GHS Publications

All academic publications of the University of Bern can be found in the institutional repository of the University of Bern and the Bern University Hospital, BORIS (Bern Open Repository and Information System).

To search for GHS Publications in BORIS, go directly to the search results for the «Graduate School for Health Sciences (GHS)», or go to Advanced Search and select «Graduate School for Health Sciences (GHS)» in the Graduate Schools box of the electronic form.

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