Presentation of the UGA Physics Doctoral School

2025 Doctors' Ceremony
2025 Doctors' Ceremony

The Physics Doctoral School (ED PHYS - ED n°47) is a thematic doctoral school in the Grenoble region (including Chambéry and Valence). ED PHYS is one of the 13 doctoral schools of the Doctoral College of the Université Grenoble Alpes. There are links with other doctoral schools on the site, some of which have common themes and host laboratories.

The main missions of the ED PHYS :

  • To award doctoral contracts from the Université Grenoble Alpes (via a competition).
  • Ensure the quality of applications for all theses, regardless of funding.
  • Informing and ensuring the pedagogical and administrative follow-up of doctoral students, from the first registration until the thesis is defended, in compliance with the thesis charter and in close collaboration with the host laboratories and teams.
  • Organising, in conjunction with the Doctoral Schools College, training courses, assignments and activities that are useful for doctoral students' research projects, the acquisition of additional skills and their career plans,
  • Assist supervisors in their training duties. The HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) committee is thus attached to the PHYS ED.
  • Contribute to the attractiveness and promotion of doctoral studies at national and international level, in both the academic and industrial sectors.

The ED PHYS in numbers (in 2024-2025)

  • 416 doctoral students enrolled
  • 112 theses defended
  • 21 co-supervised theses
  • 30 host laboratories
  • 500 researchers and teacher-researchers qualified to direct research (HDR)
  • 50% of doctoral students hold a French Master's degree from outside Grenoble
  • 36% foreign doctoral students from 38 countries

8 PhD specialities at the ED PHYS

  • Astrophysics and Diluted Media
  • Nanophysics
  • Applied Physics
  • Condensed Matter and Radiation Physics
  • Physics of Materials
  • Subatomic Physics and Astroparticles
  • Theoretical Physics
  • Physics for Life Sciences
Published on  December 16, 2020
Updated on December 9, 2025