At the end of the second year, an external co-referee must be selected and approved by the members of the thesis committee. External co-referees are internationally recognized researchers in the research field of the candidate's thesis project; they must not be affiliated with the University of Bern, not be involved in active collaboration with the candidate's research group and not have had co-authorship with the supervisor or the candidate in the previous five years.
GCB Promotion Regulations, Art. 13 2 External examiners are independent research group leaders who have expertise in the research area of the doctoral candidate and have not published any research paper together with the doctoral candidate or the thesis supervisor during the last five years. An external examiner may be the same as the external co-referee of the written dissertation and is either present in person or connected via videoconference.
The external co-referee is formally contacted by the supervisor to confirm acceptance of the role and the name is then forwarded to the GCB.
The role of the external co-referee is to write an independent assessment of the candidate's doctoral thesis and award a grade. The assessment should be completed within a maximum of five weeks after receipt of the written thesis and should be compiled on the GCB External Co-referee Thesis Assessment Form (DOCX, 240KB). This form also provides the necessary instructions. The completed form should be submitted to the GCB no later than four weeks before the date of thesis defense. For detailed information on assessments, see PhD Degree.
