On Self funded PhD, Permit and RAV

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
1
Hi

I am a non EU, doing PhD at Bern. My employment contract ends in next couple of months. My PhD is still not over as it might take one more year to complete. My professor agrees that I could continue as an external PhD student. In this case, I would have to self fund my PhD.

1. I am not sure if I would be eligible to register at RAV for unemployment benefits being a self funded PhD student.

2. Will I be able to get a new permit through RAV or should I extend it myself at the migration office?

3. Will I be eligible to work 100% for a new employer along side my PhD?

4. Has any of you experienced a similar situation? If yes, being a non salaried external doctoral candidate, were you still required to be registered at the university as a PhD student with an immatrikulation number? Would this impact the working possibility and unemployment benefits?

5. Are there any housing and insurance allowance for unemployed? Eg: in the Netherlands unemployed candidates need to pay only some percent of their housing and health insurance expenses.

Looking forward to expert suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Best

Scie

2
Hello,

It's a quite challenging situation. Finished PhD back on 2017, so info may not be up-to-date. Well...

1- You contributed to the unemployment fund, so you have right to claim benefits. But, you need a permit to stay in CH and the current student with income permit is linked to university employment. Therefore, no uni contract, no permit, not allowed to stay in CH. Unemployment benefits are not the important issue here, the residence permit takes priority.

2-no idea

3- This is kind of complicate. Technically, if you're registered in a university you're allowed to work max 15 or 20 hours per week outside the university. The motivation for this is that the university resources are not wasted on someone working 100%, no energy is left for studies.

4- Depends. Do you need access to lab, library, uni computers, etc? You'll have to register to have an access card. But if you're registered as student, you're not unemployed, see the point above.

5- No. There's no social housing policy, either at cantonal or federal level. What I did as student was sharing a flat to keep costs down. Pay only for 1 room.

How is the relationship with the professor? From outside and with the perspective of a stranger on the internet it looks the professor either doesn't care about what happens with you or has zero experience.

Are you familiar with students associations? They may know more about alternatives.

I guess you're already finishing the thesis. Could you do this from home or a lower cost place?

There some political discussions about letting university graduates from Swiss universities stay after the degree is obtained. But, this is after you get that beautiful letter from the uni admin telling all requisites for the degree have been completed and you're just waiting for the next diploma ceremony.

3
Thanks Axa for the detailed response. I will visit RAV to fetch further information. By the way my professor is kind and supportive. It is just that due to uni regulations my contract cannot be extended. I still have a paper in progress and thesis left so would like to remain here in order to complete them before moving out.

4
Cannot they hire you as a research assistant on a different position? Perhaps you can be hired for a research project funded from a different grant? The time restriction can be put on positions fully funded by the university, that I have seen before.

If you are not EU, then you need to find a different job and I'm afraid you will be forced to go through the usual steps of obtaining a new permit for that position.