• Some months prior to your defence date, you need to fill out the Credit Point Administration form and present this actual update and send it to the HRSMC office. 
• The management of HRSMC will present a certificate to those PhD students who have fulfilled the requirements for the HRSMC PhD certificate (depicted below). 
• PhD students who have followed the HRSMC Class of Excellence can use the credit points of the school followed during their master, only if they haven’t received points for this on their master diploma. As a proof they have to send the chair of the educational committee their master grade list.

Credit Points

The values listed below have been established in accordance with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) in which one credit point corresponds with approximately 28 hours of work. 
A minimum of 15 credit points is required to obtain the HRSMC certificate. Remarks:

·         Every PhD needs to follow at least one HRSMC course and one HRSMC school for the HRSMC certificate. If there is no HRSMC school or course available supporting the aspects of the PhD research, an external course can be chosen instead (but for 95% of the PhD student this is not necessary). The other items are optional: for the certificate it is not ‘a must’ to do a course on didactics or a research in another laboratory, but when this is done a maximum of 6 ECTS can be given for this activity. PhD students who have followed the HRSMC Class of Excellence can use the credit points of the school followed during their master, only if they haven’t received points for this on their master diploma. As a proof they have to send the chair of the educational committee their master grade list.

·         The Han-sur-Lesse Winter school ‘Theoretical Chemistry & Spectroscopy’ is not organized by the HRSMC, but many HRSMC staff members are involved. Therefore, this course is considered as a HRSMC school for the HRSMC certificate.

·         A colloquium is a presentation, which a PhD gives at the beginning (normally after 3-6 months). A PhD researcher presents his/her research plans and gives a general background of the project. This colloquium can be based on the paper.

·         A paper should not be confused with a scientific article. A paper is a document, which a PhD researcher normally makes at the beginning of his/her research. This paper includes items like:
- The general background of the research project
- The plans a PhD researcher has for the first years of his/her research project.

·         15 points is a minimum and can, of course, be exceeded.