PhD programme
Doing a PhD at the ZHAW School of Engineering
The ZHAW School of Engineering offers students with a Master’s degree the opportunity to do a doctorate in cooperation with its partner universities. While studying for your PhD, you work on applied research projects at the university of applied sciences and are supervised jointly by professors from the ZHAW and its partner university.
You thus benefit from the strengths of both types of university and, with your dissertation project, also contribute towards raising the profile of research at the School of Engineering. The School of Engineering, for its part, creates favourable conditions and prerequisites for supporting high-quality research.
As a doctoral student, you are enrolled in a regular PhD programme at a partner university and are required to go through its admission process. After completing the programme, you will receive a doctorate from the partner university in question. Most PhD networks are also open to students with a Master’s degree from a university of applied sciences. They are, however, required to complete the processes (specific to each faculty) that are necessary for admission to the partner university. In addition to formalised PhD programmes, it is also possible for individual agreements to be concluded between partner universities, doctoral students and ZHAW.
Vacant positions
Formal PhD programmes with partner universities
ZHAW is part of the PhD Network Data Science. We thus participate in the University of Zurich’s PhD Programme in Data Science.
A broad selection of topics is available for doctoral studies in data science and these explicitly include data-intensive areas of Industry 4.0, such as predictive maintenance, data analytics and risk management, and cloud computing.
ZHAW graduates with a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE) are also eligible for the joint doctoral programme run by ZHAW and the Università Ca' Foscari in Venice. They can complete their doctoral studies in data science over a period of four years. They spend one year in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics at the University of Venice and three years at the ZHAW School of Engineering. MSE graduates from ZHAW can participate directly in the programme without having to catch up on additional ECTS from the Master’s degree programme.
Important to know
- The doctorate is always awarded by the partner university. It is therefore the regulations of the partner university that are decisive.
- In most cases, doctoral students at ZHAW School of Engineering are employed as scientific assistants; the dissertation is normally embedded in a fairly large research project (Innosuisse, SNSF, Horizon Europe).
- ZHAW School of Engineering supports dissertation projects that are related to one of its main research areas.
- The dissertation topic is agreed on directly by the doctoral student and their supervising professors from the university of applied sciences and the partner university.
- Doctoral students are expected to display a high degree of independence and discipline and to actively exchange ideas with the contact persons in the institutes and centres.
How will the ZHAW School of Engineering support me with my dissertation project?
- Financial support through PhD programmes and internal calls
- Time support, including for caregivers
- Networking within the PhD community
- Access to foreign universities and networks (e.g. Horizon Europe Doctoral Network, PhD networks)
ZHAW employees and students will find further information in the Intranet.
Interested? Then venture to take the next step
A dissertation project requires careful planning and preparation in both the professional and private environment. We will be happy to offer you a consultation.