#19

September 2025

PhD Capsule

News and events of the Doctoral School

Welcome back from the summer break! We hope you had a chance to relax and recharge. As we kick off the Fall 2025 semester, we wish you a great start and a rewarding few months ahead. Here’s what’s coming up this semester.

Transversal skills courses | Enroll now! 

ENG-641 The Practice of Ethics in Engineering Research

Teacher: Ferrarello Laura Filippa

Dates:  10 sessions · 2 hours each | Every Thursday from October 2 – December 18, 2025  (no class on Oct. 16 & 23) 

Through facilitated debates and the systemic analysis of ethical challenges in engineering and scientific research, the course outlines how human agency can respond to these dilemmas to reframe these as opportunities for innovation. In this course, human decision–making is used as a vehicle to outline a good practice of engineering research and practice.

Registration: via IS-Academia

More info

ENG-646 Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership

Teacher: Jeannet Pierre-Yves

Dates: December 1-2-4-5-9-10, 2025

The sole objective of this highly interactive, challenging and stimulating course is to leave you being a leader and exercising leadership effectively as your natural self-expression.

Registration: To enroll, send a few sentences about yourself and your motivation to beingaleaderepfl@proton.me by November 14, 2025.

More info

MGT-641 Technology and Public Policy - Technology and innovation policies for grand and global challenges

Teacher: Foray Dominique

Dates: Sept. 19, 26 and Oct. 3, 10, 13, 27, 31 | 10h15 - 13h

This course addresses the design of policies for Grand Challenges. It aims at providing a policy toolkit - about innovation, economic regulation and societal inclusion - while supporting students about writing the first pillars of a roadmap to address one specific Grand Challenge.

Registration: via IS-Academia

More info

ENG-642 Creating & capturing value from innovative tech

Teacher: Tal Itzkovitch Sharon

Dates: November 17-21, 2025

In this hands-on course, you will learn how to identify and evaluate business opportunities stemming from an innovative technology, and how to set the ground for a successful entrepreneurial endeavour.

Registration: Open in August via IS-Academia

More info

ENG-629 Lecturing and Presenting in Engineering

Teachers: de Lima Joelyn, Isaac Siara Ruth

Informed by contemporary research on teaching engineering, participants design and deliver lessons for specific audiences. This course is relevant for teaching assistants and those who intend to make teaching science or engineering part of their career, in a formal or informal way.

More info

ENG-644 Teaching STEM: a problem solving approach

Teachers: de Lima Joelyn, Deparis Simone 

Teaching assistants in first year courses are the intended audience - please contact the instructors if you are not currently involved in such a course. This course explores relevant heuristics, epistemologies, metacognitive skills and evidence-informed teaching strategies for developing problem solving skills that transfer from paper-based exercises to complex, real world engineering situations.

Registration deadline: September 30, 2025

More info

How to write successful proposals

Course offered by the Research Office

Every other Thursday @ Lunchtime (11am-1pm) • six meetings from September 27 to December 04, 2025 • Building BI, Lausanne campus • Zoom possible for satellite campus attendees 

This course will cover where to look for appropriate fellowship and research funding opportunities, the ins and outs of the application process itself, and how to prepare a written proposal. The main goal will be to write a full proposal for a major postdoctoral fellowship or proof-of concept grant through an iterative process. 

Registration deadline: September 18, 2025

More info | Registration

Call for projects | Summer Schools in 2026 with ETH Zürich

Here is an opportunity to obtain funding and organize your own Summer School in 2026 with your colleagues from ETH Zürich. If you have a topic, you would like to explore during 2026, get started soon: submissions are due by October 1, 2025.

More info & application

Doctoral Program Directors | Appointments

Prof. Jacques Fellay has been appointed Director of the doctoral program in Computational and Quantitative Biology (EDCB) starting September 1, 2025. 

Prof. Romain Fleury has been appointed Director of the doctoral program in Electrical Engineering (EDEE) from November 1, 2025. 

Prof. Pierre Dillenbourg's appointment as Director of the joint EPFL – ETH Zurich Doctoral Program in the Learning Sciences (JDPLS) has been extended through February 28, 2026. 

We thank you for your commitment and wish you and your colleagues every success in running your program.

EVENTS

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Contact: edoc.news@epfl.ch