Frequently asked questions
Future changes to the programme
Are there any changes planned for the future?
A continuation of the Wolfgang-Gentner scholarship programme beyond 2023 is planned. The conditions for new scholarships are currently being worked out. An update is expected for 2024. The BMBF has ensured the full funding for all current scholarships.
Registration
What needs to filled in the CERN registration form under "grant"?
The registration form as a doctoral student asks, among other things, for a "grant": Will you be receiving a grant for the duration of this contract?. The Gentner Scholarship does not constitute a grant in the sense of this question. Gentner Scholarships are an internal source of funding for CERN and do not have to be specified here. Only in the case of further funding through an external scholarship, e.g. via the German Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, the corresponding amount must be entered and documented here. If the Gentner scholarship is the sole source of funding, the answer to this question can be no.
Staying at CERN
What is the maximum stay at CERN within the Gentner Programme?
Regular funding is for 3 years. The contract will be initially issued for six months and is renewable yearly and for six months.
Unpaid interruptions from one month up to a total interruption of 12 months are possible, such that a total stay with status Doctoral Students is possible for up to 4 years, with maximum 3 years funded by the Gentner Programme.
Covid-19 related extensions
CERN Management decided in June 2020 and in January 2021 that exceptional extensions can be granted of up to 6 months beyond 3 regularly funded years in case of Covid-19 related delays.
However, any such extensions need to be paid by CERN departments/groups, the Gentner Programme will not cover Covid-19 extensions.
Despite the different funding source for Covid-19 extensions, doctoral students will continue to be counted as Gentner students.
No more Covid-19 extensions will be approved as of January, 2024.
Staying at CERN after 3 years funding
Funding as Doctoral Student is limited to a maximum of 3 years, an extension is not possible.
In agreement with the CERN group and to the cost of the CERN group, staying at CERN can be extended beyond 3 years, but requires to become a "USER" or "COAS", instead of "Doctoral Student" (see also categories of members of the personnel).
To obtain "USER" or "COAS" status, an employment contract at a university or research institution is mandatory, which however, can be limited to a few
hours per week only. Validity of the "USER" or "COAS" status is coupled to the duration of the employment contract, and should be more than 2 months as extension of "french card" and "swiss card" is not possible otherwise.
Are Doctoral Students contributing to a health insurance scheme?
Contributions for health insurance are automatically paid into the CERN Health Insurance Scheme (CHIS),
which also covers accidents (both occupational as well as non-ocupational accidents). Family members are also insured and included.
The current contribution rate (status of 2016) is 4.86% of the monthly subsistence for Doctoral Students (= 179 CHF/month, unmarried, no children) and is directly deducted from the received subsistence.
However, there is no insurance against the financial consequences after illness or accident, such as disability. Hence, it is recommended to take out a private disability insurance.
Are Doctoral Students contributing to the CERN pension fund and are they insured against unemployment?
No contributions are paid into a pension fund, e.g. into the CERN Pension Fund, and there is no unemployment insurance like the corresponding German insurance. To leave no gap until reaching entitlement for full German pension, voluntary contributions can be paid, e.g. into the German public pension fund. Minimum contribution to the fund is 83.70 Euro per month, maximum contribution is 1320.60 Euro per month (status of 2020).
Is there maternity leave or paternity leave?
As for other stipends there are no rights to get maternity leave or paternity leave.
In case of maternity or paternity, monthly subsistence including contributions for health insurance continues to be paid without interruption and to its full amount.
Funding beyond 3 years is not extended because of maternity or paternity.
Integration costs
Which integration costs are covered?
A lump-sum for travel expenses is paid for the students’ journey from the place of residence at the time of his taking up appointment to CERN and on departure. The present lump-sum is 268 CHF (status of 2021) for Germany and needs to be requested at the relevant Departmental Secretariat.
The CERN group has to cover the following costs:
-
One language course, necessary safety training etc.
-
Working material, e.g. Desktop PC
Working material generally cannot be paid by the Gentner Programme. The Programme solely covers personnel costs (subsistence + allowance at CERN, travel expenses).
Cost sharing BMBF (through Gentner Programme) - CERN
The cost sharing of integration costs and travel expenses (see below) between BMBF (through Gentner Programme) and CERN are documented in detail in an annex to the agreement between BMBF - CERN - DESY.
Travel expenses
Which type of travel can be reimbursed by the Gentner Programme?
For Doctoral Students:
- Travel expenses (transport only, up to one trip per year) to the home university for discussion with the university supervisor or giving a presentation (e.g. in a group seminar).
- Travel expenses (transport, accommodation, daily allowance and registration fee, once during the Gentner time) to the appropriate national, German symposium, e.g.
DPG Spring Meetings,
German Conference of Women in Physics,
DKV Conference,
vfdb Conference,
Conference of German Libraries,
GDCP Annual Conference,
Chaos Communication Congress
and others.
For Supervisors:
- Travel expenses (transport, accommodation and daily allowance) of the CERN supervisor to the home university of the Gentner student on the occasion of the disputation or thesis defense.
Travel organisation and reimbursement
For travel applications starting from April 24, 2024, DESY takes care of
a) the reimbursement for travel to national German symposia according to
the rules of the German Federal Travel Expenses Act (Bundesreisekostengesetz, BRKG).
b) the reimbursement of transportation costs for travel to the
home university (once per year).
Detailed information on the reimbursement procedure and rates can be found in this leaflet.
Please note that these rules
differ from the CERN travel reimbursement rules in terms of reimbursement rates, combination of official travel with private travel, etc..
For any questions about the reimbursement rules, please contact Stephanie Krause, Tel. +49 40 8998 3100. In case of difficult issues, you might be forwarded to the DESY travel agent involved in your travel expense claim.
The following steps are required for the travel organisation and reimbursement:
- Only for Gentner students and CERN supervisors: An approved EDH Travel form is required, before proceeding with the travel arrangements.
In the section Travel details: enter "T273770" for the Budget code. Reason for travel: enter the reason for the trip and add: "Gentner travel, reimbursement through DESY, no cost for CERN." Planned private stays before/after the official travel should be detailed in the section Absence. (Note that a private stay of more than 5 working days in connection with the business trip has implications on the reimbursement of transport costs.) In the section Expenses: enter "yes" three times for paid by a third party, and submit without other expenses, such that the Totals costs are "0.00 CHF".
- The traveler organises the trip (e.g. purchase of train/plane tickets, booking of accommodation, etc.) according to the reimbursement rules from the leaflet. The tickets do not need to be booked through the CERN travel agency (Egencia).
- On return from the trip, the traveler collects all necessary receipts in paper form (including a printout of the EDH TRVL form for travelers from CERN), fills out the reimbursement form, prints and signs it and sends the documents via CERN "outgoing mail" to
Stephanie Krause
DESY FHR
D-22603 Hamburg, Germany.
- The reimbursement is paid by bank transfer to the account of the traveler (typically within 6-8 weeks after receipt at DESY).
What travel expenses are covered by the CERN group?
Once during the entire CERN stay: travel costs (transport and daily allowance) and registration fee for an international conference or a workshop with presentation of the work results.
Yearly: CERN may bear the cost of one trip to the home University (transport and daily allowance).
Yearly: invitation of German university professor to CERN (transport and daily allowance).
See also:
https://admin-eguide.web.cern.ch/node/1298.
Reimbursements of schools?
Schools, e.g. CERN Computing School or CERN Accelerator School cannot be reimbursed from the Gentner Programme. At the discretion of the CERN group, costs of schools could be paid partially or entirely by the CERN group.
Costs could also be covered by the home university. However, neither the CERN Group nor the home university are committed to pay for schools.
Travel to national, German collaboration meetings or international conferences?
Travel expenses to national, German collaboration meetings such as ATLAS-D, CMS-D meetings etc., or to international conferences, meetings outside of Germany cannot be reimbursed from the Gentner Programme. It is up to the CERN group, or home institution, whether the travel costs will be covered partially or completely.
Obligations at the home university, absence from CERN
Handling of mandatory obligations at the home university, e.g. giving lab courses
Short-term travel to the home university is foreseen in the Gentner Programme and can be reimbursed (see above).
Longer travel can also be reimbursed under certain conditions. Please contact Dominik Dannheim in these cases. In agreement with the CERN supervisor, these trips should be registered as "duty travel" in EDH.
Absence from CERN for longer periods
If you plan to be away from CERN for more than 4 weeks for professional reasons, the CERN contract shall be suspended for the period of absence. The CERN contract will
be "on hold" during that time, such that the end date of your stay at CERN is postponed correspondingly. The cumulated periods of absence may be a maximum of one year and must be filed as unpaid leave.
In case of more than 2 months absence, "french card" and "swiss card" needs to be returned, which at the same time stops the possibility of driving a car with french green number plates (431 K ....).
Please note that when the contract is "on hold", no subsistence is being paid and there is no health insurance coverage by the CERN Health Insurance Scheme CHIS. However, it is possible to continue CHIS health insurance coverage on a voluntary basis. Please note that in this case the Doctoral Student also needs to pay the contributions usually paid by CERN (the Gentner Programme). Hence, the total contribution increases from 4.86% to 12.57% of the last subsistence, see also at "Ex-Compulsory Main Members affiliated for less than 1 year" under: CHIS Main Members Contributions.
Alternatively, health insurance coverage can be provided in Germany, e.g. by a short-term contract at the home university or through the Allianz Health Insurance for CERN MPAs. The Allianz insurance has world-wide coverage (expect the US) and can be subscribed from a minimum of 30 days up to 180 days, renewable.
Progress Reports
How often progress reports must be written?
For the extension after 6 months (approbation period) no progress reports are needed.
The CERN supervisor (after being reminded) just needs to give his agreement for a contract extension.
For contract extensions after 18 and 30 months, progress reports must be written describing the progress of the student's thesis work (after being reminded). The progress report consists of 3 parts, to be written and commonly signed by the student, the CERN supervisor and German supervisor.
What is the typical length of a progress report?
Progress reports will typically comprise about 2-3 pages (in English). They should describe the progress achieved over the past reference period (one year or six months) and an outlook (work schedule) of the following period (next 6-12 months). The work plan should be about half a page.
Beside work progress, also participation at conferences, presentations, posters, publications, training courses and (if any) supervision of, e.g. Summer Students shall be mentioned.
Presentations and Publications
Which affiliation should be indicated at conferences and publications?
When registering for conferences / workshops and in publications it is necessary to specify the institute affiliation. The correct affiliation is
both CERN and the home university: "Name (CERN and University XX)" or "Name (CERN / XX University)", as Doctoral Students are
both member of a CERN group and enrolled at their home university to obtain their PhD.
Which wording should be used in Acknowledgements?
In publications, in addition to the authors list, often acknowledgments are made mentioning support received by funding agencies or special programmes. The Gentner Programme is such a supporting Programme and should be mentioned in the acknowledgment.
Correct wording is as follows (including grant number):
"This work has been sponsored by the Wolfgang Gentner Programme of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grant no. 13E18CHA)" or
"Diese Arbeit wurde gefördert durch das Wolfgang-Gentner-Programm des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF-Forschungsvorhaben 13E18CHA)".
Open Access
All presentations and publications, PhD Theses in particular, which are results in the sense of the Gentner Programme, need to be accessable free of charge. Documents should be uploaded to the CERN Document Server (CDS) (preferred), or to any other server, e.g. the library server of the home university or a pre-print server, e.g. arXiv, allowing free download.
Open Access journals are preferred for publications. Publishing at other journals or PhD theses printed as book are possible, as long as it is ensured, that free download (e.g. via CDS or arXiv) is possible at any time. The BMBF reserves any rights to use the results.
Miscellaneous
Employment Attestation
Landlords often require an employment attestation with duration of the employment before a rental contract is issued. An employment attestation may also help when opening an account at the UBS bank.
Employment attestations can be generated by self service in HRT:
https://hrt.cern.ch/hrt/EmploymentAttestation
However, the last date of the CERN contract is taken for the duration of employment (maximum 6 or 12 months), but not the maximum possible duration of stay of 3 years within the Gentner Programme.
For a certificate on the expected duration of stay of up to 3 years, please contact
Dominik Dannheim.
Taxes
Doctoral Students are associated members of the personnel (MPA) in the category associates for the purpose of training (MPAt). They are not employed by CERN and don't receive a salary but a monthly subsistence while at CERN. Subsistences are generally taxfree and don't need to be declared as income in a tax declaration.
How to contact other Gentner Doctoral Students or other German Doctoral Students at CERN?
There are two auto-generated mailing lists:
Current members of the mailing lists can be seen in e-groups.
All Doctoral Students of the Gentner Programme are automatically subscribed to the
Gentner Mattermost channel.
More informationen for German Gentner Doctoral Students
Dominik Dannheim
Last modified: Wednesday, 24-Apr-2024 08:21:04 CEST
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