Within the 3-years of the PhD program, in addition to the research activity described in the specific project, each PhD student has to attend specialized courses for a minimum of 12 credits (CFU).

These courses can be directly offered by your PhD program or by the university PhD Course Catalog (see below).

Generally, 1 CFU corresponds to 25-hours load. These hours can be dedicated to educational activities such as lectures or equivalent (minimum 5 – maximum 10 hours) and individual study.

Remember that these activities have to be certified. No student can graduate without these certifications.

As a PhD student you may be engaged in teaching support activities approved by your tutor.

See also the university regulation Art. 21 -Programme planning and delivery

PhD students can choose which courses to attend by visiting the catalog of doctoral courses:

In the home page you will find the title of the course, in which language it will be offered and the selected time frame. By clicking on it, you will have access to more information, including the number of CFU and how to apply for it. Be aware that some courses have limited seats.

When PhD students enter the program of Experimental Medicine, the Coordinator provides them with all the information concerning which courses are specifically organized by the D-MEM program and how to find them.

The PhD program in Experimental Medicine has identified 4 main topics (pillars) as fundamentals for the preparation of its students. Therefore, each student has to attend, and get certified, for at least one specialistic course coherent with each of the following pillars:

advanced experimental technologies; animal and cellular models in experimental medicine; biomedical statistics; bioinformatics.

Please consider to discuss with your tutor which specialistic courses you would like to attend during your educational track. You have to be confident that the program will get approved. Be also aware that the offer can change each year. Eventually, try to obtain your 12 CFU within the first 2 years, in order to make it more feasible the possibility to spend some of your final research activity in a different laboratory/country.

Along the 3 years of the PhD program, each student should also participate to the so-called “transferable skills” training program (or transversal training lectures) for at least 72 hours – for a commitment of 4 hours every two months. These courses are scheduled and offered by our University.

• In particular, the University provides a wide range of cross-curricular courses, consisting of individual modules or cycles of lessons that should foster the comprehension of research result exploitation systems, intellectual property protection and ethical implications of research, also with a perspective on European funding programs. These courses are intended for doctoral students in all academic areas. No registration is required, unless otherwise indicated by the teacher. The full list of lectures dedicated to each cycle training can be found at the following web site

Don’t forget that courses are mandatory to gain credits, as it is written in the PhD academic guidelines art. 21. Particularly, during the 3 years of the PhD it is mandatory to attend 72 hours of transferrable skills.