1 Executive
summary
\label{executive-summary}
The main strength of the program: This Ph.D. program is
situated at two universities (Geneva and Lausanne) both with an
excellent reputation for neuroscience research. Many of the involved
groups and PIs are well-known and are working at the forefront of modern
neuroscience research. The neuroscientific research at both universities
(Geneva and Lausanne) are working in different areas comprising
cognitive neuroscience in humans, clinical neurosciences, brain imaging,
animal research, computational neurosciences, and modern approaches for
neurorehabilitation (e.g., brain-computer interface techniques). Thus,
this Ph.D. program offers a wide but nevertheless excellent portfolio of
neuroscience approaches. In addition, the labs are excellently equipped,
the Ph.D. students well and satisfactorily paid, and supervised.
Although different faculties and universities are involved in this
program, the organization is excellent. All in all, this is indubitable
an excellent Ph.D. neuroscience program which is hard to find
internationally.
The main weaknesses of the program: The main weaknesses of the
program are seen in two aspects which strongly depend on each other: (1)
several of the current and former Ph.D. students do and did not realize
that they had the opportunity to participate in this excellent program.
They rather believe that they would participate in a more or less
standard and/or ordinary Ph.D. program. In the opinion of the reviewers,
this mainly depends on the fact that (and this is the 2nd identified
weakness of this program) this program has not been advertised
appropriately in the scientific world.
Main recommendations : The reviewers recommend that this Ph.D.
program should be advertised more efficiently. By advertising this
program more intensively this will attract more candidates which will
increase competition for the open Ph.D. positions. This will at the end
increase the intellectual and motivational quality of the candidates and
thus the entire program. An interesting side effect of the improved
attractiveness will also enhance the “esprit de corps” of the enrolled
students, which will also have a positive impact on the student’s
motivation. Besides this major recommendation we suggest some more or
less minor improvements (e.g., including a mentoring program, fixed
semester dates, mandatory courses in scientific writing, ethics, and
programming).