Mandatory Courses

All PhD students enrolled before 01.01.2022 must visit in minimum the LSZGS "Introductory Lecture to Good Scientific Practice (GSP) and Scientific Integrity" (2h, 0 ECTS) or the ETHZ Workshop "Research Integrity"(0 ECTS).

Please, register via LSZGS

At the end students sign the declaration of “Good scientific practice” that becomes part of their DissGo documents. PhD students planning to participate in a more extensive course on “Research Integrity” or “Ethics” during their PhD program don’t need to visit this introduction event. For all accredited Scientific Integrity training courses check the Scientific integrity training course catalogue.

All PhD students enrolled 1.1.2022 or later at ETHZ must visit a course on "Research Integrity" in your department (1 ECTS -> registration through MyStudies).

Challenges in Plant Sciences – PSC Colloquium is a core event of the Plant Science Center's PhD program and the MSc module. The colloquium introduces participants to the broad spectrum of disciplines in plant sciences. The topics offer integrated knowledge about plant sciences, from the molecular level to the ecosystem level, and from basic to applied science while making use of the synergies between the different research groups of the PSC.

The course offers a unique chance to approach interdisciplinary topics as challenges in the field of plant sciences. During the kick-off meeting, lecturers give talks on various topics as a general introduction to their research fields. Subsequently, each student group prepares a presentation chosen from a variety of topics and based on literature provided by the lecturers. Students broaden their knowledge in plant sciences. They also practice their lecturing skills and discuss research publications.

Individual Performance and Assessment: 2 Credit Points for PhD and Master students. Based on 8 days of work (= 60 learning hours) consisting of 2 days block course and 6 days of independent preparation time for the talk.

2 ECTS (60 learning hours)
Annually (fall semester)
PSC professors and group leaders
► This course addresses PhD and Master's students

(1 ECTS, 3 days with individual work in-between)

Lecturers and case study supervisor: Sarah Bütikofer (University of Zurich and Defacto)

The course is an introduction to politics in a globalised world, with a focus on how political science tries to understand and explain cross-country and cross-time differences. The course will begin by introducing students to some of the main empirical variations in political behaviour, institutions, and actors, focusing mainly on democratic and partially democratic countries. We mainly discuss theoretical approaches to the study of politics and policies across a range of states, international organizations and issue areas. Students will learn about the influence of political actors on decision-making processes, political negotiations and public opinion. The course involves interactive elements, movie scenes and discussions. The students are also asked to participate in an in-class assignment in order to obtain the ECTS points.

Individual Performance and Assessment: In order to obtain the 1 ECTS point, each participant is required to actively participate in the in-class assignment and discussions during the course days (14 hours). In addition, participants are expected to: Prepare for the second day a written group essay and a short presentation. The essay mainly consists in answering a couple of questions concerning the chosen country. The essay should be no longer than 6000 characters. The preparation work for the essay including literature study before the course is 16 hours.