Meet Mia Ericson, new Vice Dean for postgraduate studies

MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT. Mia Ericson wants to make it easier for PhD students and supervisors, while maintaining the high quality of Sahlgrenska Academy’s postgraduate studies. She has been responsible for postgraduate studies at various levels since 2009 and is now part of the Faculty’s management team as the new Vice Dean within that area.

“The size of Sahlgrenska Academy is both our strength and our challenge in postgraduate studies,” says Mia Ericson when I meet her in her office on the ground floor of the Physiology building. We have many talented PhD students, with an immensely broad background. The faculty is also responsible for several graduate schools, including several national ones where we have received funding for the graduate school in competition with other universities. But the scale of the postgraduate studies also means that we risk dealing with the same issues at several different levels within the faculty, which is demanding for communication and smart collaboration.

Many new rules

The large number of PhD students from collaborative universities, where many of the PhD students have their main employment within Sahlgrenska University Hospital or Region Västra Götaland, poses special challenges for quality work in postgraduate studies:

“Some of our PhD students from collaborative universities feel lonely and struggle to find time for research. It poses a challenge to attend a lecture or an academic meeting at a few weeks’ notice, so we need to have more fixed times where the PhD students from collaborative universities can plan to participate in this type of activity well in advance,” says Mia Ericson.

For PhD supervisors, basic supervisor training is required, but the faculty does not offer any further development or clear channel for news in postgraduate studies.

“We do not pay our external supervisors, which makes it difficult to make demands. At the same time, we expect it to be in their own interest to maintain their competence regarding the conditions for postgraduate studies,” says Mia Ericson.

Compared to how it was when she herself defended her PhD thesis back in 2000, the rules surrounding postgraduate studies have become much more rigid, both for better and for worse.

“There have been several rule changes that clarify the conditions for PhD students to ensure good postgraduate studies, which is good because these changes were made for a reason. At the same time, the system has become more cumbersome and bureaucratic. I wish there were a little more room for flexibility,” says Mia Ericson.

A wish to simplify

One way to facilitate this is to continue to develop digital signature systems, which is an ongoing project at the Sahlgrenska Academy’s administrative office. It will save time and energy for both PhD students and supervisors who still frequently must chase signatures to formalize part time or a notification of defending a PhD thesis.

Mia Ericson also thinks that PhD students and supervisors need clear information about why certain steps must be done in a certain way, and why the rules are implemented the way they are:

“If something is important and it is written in the Higher Education Ordinance, we must follow the regulations. Then everyone must also know why it is important so that it is done properly. But if we have local rules that are not regulated by the state and are no longer that important, we should remove them,” says Mia Ericson.

One area where the Sahlgrenska Academy needs to step up is the Double Degree, where PhD students are admitted to two universities at the same time, and thus receive a double research degree when they defend their thesis. Sahlgrenska Academy has some such ongoing collaborations, including with KU Leuven in Belgium, and with Chalmers and SLU here in Sweden. However, the administrative burden of obtaining such a PhD is very burdensome. It can take two years to prepare all the agreements and details before the PhD student can start the project. This is an area that Mia is looking forward to working on together with Ewa-Lena Bratt, Vice Dean for Internationalization.

A good research environment

The working environment for PhD students is another applicable area for Mia Ericson. Among the PhD students focusing more on preclinical research, for example, there are many who risk being isolated because they lack Swedish language skills.

“It is important that we work on inclusion, so that no one is excluded. This is where I want us to help PhD students create context. One way could be to integrate the clinical and preclinical PhD students more in the context of joint courses in the mandatory course package for PhD students,” says Mia.

The challenging financial situation at Sahlgrenska University Hospital is another factor that risks negatively affecting the working environment of PhD students.

“We are seeing indications that more collaborative PhD students are cancelling courses late, and we believe this is an effect of the hiring freeze. Healthcare needs for existing staff have increased. We know that SU and other healthcare providers have the same goals as we do, and that they want to protect the academic environment of collaborative PhD students. It is our task to raise this so that the conditions are reviewed,” says Mia Ericson.

Ongoing evaluations

Sahlgrenska Academy’s postgraduate studies are now eager to get going with the introduction of so-called exit polls, i.e., evaluations where all PhD students, who have just defended their thesis, will be asked to complete a survey assessing their postgraduate studies. Such evaluations of the postgraduate studies should become a permanent feature, helping the faculty with its quality work.

“We have recently redesigned our entire compulsory course program for postgraduate studies. By asking PhD students who have just defended their thesis, we can investigate whether the courses have been as good as we hoped and as we believe them to be. The evaluations will give us a good ongoing basis for improvement.

As Vice Dean for Postgraduate studies, Mia Ericson is the Dean’s right arm in these matters. Together with the Dean, the Deputy Dean and the other Vice Deans, she is part of the Faculty’s management team. She is also chair of the Council for Postgraduate Studies (FUR), where she has long been one of the members, and she represents Sahlgrenska Academy in GU joint and national forums for postgraduate studies.

Alcohol and dopamine

Mia Ericson is a Professor of Addiction Medicine at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, conducting research on alcohol addiction. Attracted by laboratory work, she initially trained as a biomedical analyst. She began her professional career as an assistant in various laboratories within at the Institute of Pharmacology, where she worked in several groups associated with Nobel Laureate Arvid Carlsson.

“I was later employed by Jörgen Engel and Bosse Söderpalm, who after a while asked if I wanted to become a PhD student. And that is how it turned out, after I completed my undergraduate studies,” says Mia.

Her thesis focused on the important role of the nicotinic receptor in how alcohol releases dopamine in the brain’s reward system. She conducted studies with rats that showed that animals drinking large amounts of alcohol over many months, chose water instead when the nicotinic receptor in a specific region of the brain was blocked. In terms of research, she is still working within the same field, but now with a broader perspective. A key technique in the research is microdialysis, which makes it possible to administer substances locally in different areas of the brain to an awake animal and concomitantly follow the neurotransmission taking place in the brain. The increased understanding of the mechanisms by which alcohol releases dopamine has been the basis of ongoing clinical studies, which may lead to an effective medicine for alcohol addiction.

Sweden highly esteemed

When she did her own postdoc for three years in Rochester, New York, she noticed that Swedish postgraduate studies were highly esteemed in the US. International postgraduate studies are often a full year shorter, and researchers from Sweden, who have just defended their thesis, are therefore considered capable of more advanced research work.

“For example, PhD students have time to publish more articles before defending their thesis, which means that they have learned how to write scientific manuscripts and have often reached scientific maturity. I think it is important that we maintain that status, and that we continue to educate PhD students to perform great research,” says Mia Ericson.

BY: ELIN LINDSTRÖM