The Doctoral Student Council is there for you – and you can make a difference

DOCTORAL STUDENTS. The Doctoral Student Council wants to reach more doctoral students. You can decide how much you want to become involved, whether you just attend meetings over coffee or become a representative in committees and other bodies. A current issue for the council is the working environment for doctoral students.

The Doctoral Student Council (DoR) helps ensure the quality of Sahlgrenska Academy’s doctoral education, including through the Council for Third-Cycle Studies (FUR), the Council for Research (FOR), and Sahlgrenska Academy’s Board.

“It is important to become involved in identifying problems and contributing to solutions. It is also very satisfying to participate in the Doctoral Student Council,” says Axel Andersson, who became the chair of the Doctoral Student Council at Sahlgrenska Academy a few months ago. “You will find it rewarding to meet other doctoral students from other institutes and other research teams and hear what their situation is like.”

In addition to representing doctoral students in various bodies, the council also responds to individual questions from doctoral students and ensures that they receive support if difficult situations arise.

Want to increase participation

About 40 doctoral students are currently involved in the work of the Doctoral Student Council in various ways. More people are needed to work with quality improvements at various levels.

At the institute level, this work is done in doctoral student committees. Doctoral committees now play an active role in the Institute of Biomedicine, the Institute of Health and Care Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology. The faculty’s smallest institute, Odontology, currently lacks a doctoral student committee, as does the Institute of Clinical Sciences.

“The fact that the situation differs from one institute to another is not particularly surprising, though” says Axel Andersson:

“A doctoral student who works primarily preclinically and a clinically, externally positioned doctoral student work under very different conditions. We get small snapshots of the conditions under which different doctoral students work in various organizations, and it varies a lot.”

Leveling the playing field

Externally positioned doctoral students usually have their main employment within Region Västra Götaland. One obstacle making their participation difficult is that they are not guaranteed time extensions to their doctoral studies to compensate for the time they spend when serving as representatives on boards and such. All other doctoral students who participate in the work of the councils and assume responsibilities are entitled to compensation in the form of additional time.

“From what we hear, this explains why few externally positioned doctoral students volunteer and that it would be easier for them to participate in the Doctoral Student Council if they were guaranteed some kind of compensation. The institute partially determines how this is applied, and this makes it important that we can appoint viable doctoral committees at all institutes,” says Emma Eckernäs, vice chair of the Doctoral Student Council.

“Externally positioned doctoral students are more likely to feel that they do not have time to get involved. If all institutes were to implement the same rights for external doctoral students as for internal ones, it would level the playing field a bit, but of course there is a risk that other obstacles exist for participation by externally positioned doctoral students.”

In 2021, the Doctoral Student Council focused heavily on this issue in the Council for Third-Cycle Studies (FUR) and at the institutes. The Institute of Health and Care Sciences became the first to introduce clear guidelines on how externally positioned doctoral students are to be compensated:

“There is a core group of doctoral students at that institute who do a fantastic job and have been very actively involved in the issue. Of course, such a change depends on interest coming from the institute. At the same time, it is important to remember that the institutes face very different circumstances,” says Axel Andersson.

Awareness of the working environment

A recurring and important issue for the Doctoral Student Council is the working environment. A 2018 survey indicated that there may be psychosocial work-related problems. ARK, the large work environment survey conducted periodically by the University of Gothenburg, does not sufficiently zero in on the conditions under which doctoral students work. As a result, work has begun looking into the possibility of conducting a new scientifically validated survey of the working environment among doctoral students at Sahlgrenska Academy.

“To pursue issues related to the working environment of doctoral students, we first need to know what it looks like. For the University, it is of course also important to know how doctoral students perceive their working environment as this also is necessary to guarantee research output in the long-term,” says Emma Eckernäs.

“Surveying the working environment of doctoral students will probably take time, and the Doctoral Student Council hopes to carry out the work in close collaboration with the Council for Third-Cycle Studies,” says Andersson.

More about the Doctoral Student Council

• Online (SAKS): https://www.saks.se/sv/utbildningsrad/dor
• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhDStudentCouncil

BY: ELIN LINDSTRÖM