Get engaged in the PhD Chapter!

With mandate periods ending in December, we are looking to fill several board and functionary positions. Join us, be part of our team, and help us in our efforts to ensure high-quality education and professional development opportunities, advocate for doctoral students’ rights, and support doctoral student welfare. PhD Chapter board members are eligible to receive time compensation for their work and prolong their studies.

Open PhD Chapter Board positions will include:

  • Vice Chairperson
  • Treasurer
  • Business Liaison
  • Webmaster
  • Communication Manager
  • Council Coordinator

Open functionary positions will include:

  • Nominating Committee
  • Standard Bearers
  • Master of Ceremonies
  • Head of Women’s Doctoral Committee (WoP)
  • Auditors

Check out the job descriptions here.

If you want to get engaged, apply here.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with the current board (board@dr.kth.se) or the Nominating Committee (nominations@dr.kth.se) and we will be happy to answer them. We are looking forward to your application! 

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Doctoral student representation in the third-cycle education network

On Thursday, the 29th of October, a meeting of a relatively new forum, the third-cycle education network (Sv: forskarutbildningsnätverket) was held. The idea behind this network is to bring all the FAs (directors of third-cycle education at school levels), all the PAs (program responsibles for third-cycle education) together with the central leadership of KTH to discuss doctoral education. This was only the second edition of such a meeting. The first one was organized in VT20. From now on such meetings will be organized twice every semester. For HT20, the second meeting is scheduled for 18th December. At KTH, similar networks have existed for both the first and second cycles of education.

In Thursday’s meeting, the doctoral representatives were led by the PhD Chapter Board members Jasmin Höglund Hellgren and Mohit Daga. Several doctoral representatives from the school councils also participated. In general the meeting focused on the program analysis of PhD programs as an important part of the annual monitoring of programs and KTH quality assurance system. The PhD program analysis is done by the PAs and then also used by the FAs when doing the aggregate analysis at school level.

The parts of the program analysis are the following:

  • An analysis and self-evaluation of the program status – an analysis of quantitative data
  • An analysis and self-evaluation of the feedback from PhD students, supervisors and administrative/technical staff
  • An analysis and self-evaluation of national assessment areas and KTH prioritized goals: digitalization and integration of equality in the education
  • An analysis and self-evaluation of the integration of sustainability in the education
  • An analysis and self-evaluation of the development of the program

The program analysis of 2021 will have a special focus on digitalization and integration of equality mainly due to the rapid shift from working and teaching on campus to moving almost all activities online as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and due to the criticism formulated by the Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) concerning the lack of systematic integration of equality in KTH’s programs.

The main point on the agenda was a workshop conducted by Magnus Johansson, KTH’s Quality Assurance Officer, together with Sofia Ritzen, the Vice Dean of Faculty. The workshop discussed the upcoming quality dialogue involving doctoral education. Different aspects of doctoral education quality were discussed, for instance, doctoral courses, supervision, the ability for doctoral students to build a research network within KTH and beyond were discussed.

It was pointed out by the student representatives that the policies and guidelines regarding the doctoral courses need to be revisited. There was a general agreement for this. Regarding, supervision, it was discussed that there must be tangible mechanisms to evaluate supervision. One of the suggestion made by student representatives was to conduct personal interviews of the doctoral students. For doctoral students to build a research network beyond KTH, it was pointed out that the current guidelines and regulations discourages mobility during doctoral studies. Further, it was also mentioned that the departmental duties for doctoral students, must in practice adhere to the percentage of activities mentioned in the eISP and not overshoot it.

One of the tangible outcomes of this meeting was an agreement that doctoral students from each program will be included by the PAs during quality dialogue. In this meeting, a presentation regarding the doctoral student survey was also made by PhD Chapter Board member Mohit Daga. The FA of SCI School who was present in the meeting, through an email to the PhD Chapter, appreciated the presentation and also extended an invitation to make a similar presentation for the SCI School leadership team.

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PhD Chapter Meeting and Elections — October 19th, 2020

The PhD Chapter board welcomes the members of the PhD Chapter to the first chapter meeting of the operational year 2020/2021, which will take place on October 19th, 2020, at 17:17 (precise venue TBA due to format considerations).

During this Chapter meeting, we will hold by-elections for vacant positions on the Chapter board, which are Education Manager and Webmaster. Read more about the positions here and click here to apply. The deadline for applications is September 29th. Please get in touch if you have any questions; we’ll be happy to answer them!

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Doctoral student issues at KTH’s Faculty Council (FR)

The Faculty Council (SV: Fakultetsrådet, FR) is KTH’s leading central body mandated to discuss matters concerning quality and collegial anchoring. Since a few years, the PhD Chapter has a representative at this forum. On September 3rd, Mohit Daga, the current Chapter representative at FR, was given the opportunity to present doctoral student issues at the FR meeting.

Issues presented drew upon the Doctoral Survey Report (released by the chapter in June) and illustrated major issues experienced by doctoral students: doctoral courses, supervision, matters concerning stress & well-being, and issues related to HR & administrative support. The presentation also highlighted issues related to career guidance and support, a topic mentioned in UKÄ’s 2020 report. Prof. Anders Forsgren, Dean and Prof. Sofia Ritzén, Vice-Dean were present at the meeting and emphasized that the issues highlighted in the doctoral student survey report and the presentation should be taken into account in doctoral subject study plans, and in quality-dialogues relating third-cycle education.

The THS CFU, Oscar Stenström, praised the presentation. The Chapter appreciates its continued collaboration with the THS Management Team (SV: Kårledning, KL) and is proud to be part of THS, one of the most committed student unions in regard to student life and educational advocacy. The Chapter aims to collaborate with KL to not only work towards a sustainable and enjoyable doctoral student life but also to resolve doctoral student issues.

This presentation was a continuation of efforts made by the Chapter to raise awareness about doctoral student issues at different central bodies of KTH. In the previous semester, a presentation was made by Chapter representative Emma Riese at KTH’s Committee on Third-Cycle Education (SV: Forskarutbildningsutskottet, FU). The Chapter has also learnt that the doctoral student survey report will be discussed in meeting by department management teams (SV: Ledningsgrupper) at some schools, and has already been taken up during a recent FU meeting of the ITM school. The Chapter appreciates the input and continued advocacy work of all the school councils.

The Chapter aims to continue to raise the issues of doctoral students at relevant forums at KTH to improve doctoral students’ education, work, and well-being.

This blog was posted by Mohit Daga, Vice-Chairperson of DR for the year 2020 with editorial inputs from Tanja Ritcher, Communication Manager of DR.

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Welcome (back) PhD students!

A new semester has started, and we are happy to welcome you (back)! We are doing our best to ensure high-quality education and professional development opportunities, advocate for your rights, and support PhD student welfare. We have exciting plans for the coming months, and we will do our best to offer you fun, insightful, and enriching activities and workshops in a socially-distanced way. With that said, take some time to:

  • Browse this website to get important tips for new doctoral students, learn more about our work and advocacy, or read the latest meeting minutes to see what we are up to.
  • Follow us on facebook to stay up-to-date on new events and happenings.
  • Get in touch if you have any feedback, ideas, questions or concerns we can help you out with!

All the best for a successful new semester,

Your PhD Chapter Board

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