Minutes for the FID Meeting

Minutes for the FID Meeting

Date:27th August 2010

Time:12.00–13.15

Present:Per Thilander, Jon Williamsson, Gabriela Schaad, Johan Jakobsson, Du Jun, Edith Sorkina (guest)

ChairmanSecretary: Gabriela Schaad

At thisstart-up meeting pending issues were raised and upcoming work and questions to be dealt with by FID were discussed.

FID activities:

-FID has been asked to participate in the start-up meeting for the new PhD students on 1st September, 13-15, and give a short presentation of our purpose and activities. Johan volunteered to represent FID. (Thank you Johan!)

-FID has been requested to suggest at a forthcoming meeting with Ewa Wikström, the new Director of Study, what should be prioritized issues to work with for FUN and herself. A first brainstorming session pointed at the following priorities:

• Improvement of the financing situation
• Improvement of the introduction into routines. Particularly, information to foreign PhD students should be improved so that the same amount of information is available to ALL!
• Ensure anonymity with course evaluations

-FID received a preliminary work task description for the Director of Study by Mette Sandoff (Prefekt) and is requested to give comments. It was agreed that FID members should mail their comments to Per who will compile and forward them to Mette.

-The lack of practical information at the outset of PhD studies was identified as a hinder for a swift integration and completing studies on time. ‘Faddering’ was suggested as a measure to facilitate the integration of new PhDs . However, responses to a mail sent out to the accounting department (where 4 new PhDs are about to start) indicated that some current PhDs are more happy to assist and answer questions in an informal way than taking the formal role of a fadder. Hence, other forms of support for new PhDs might be more appropriate, f.ex. informal Q&A meeting in connection with the Open PhD Lunches or offering a list of PhD students (and their research areas) who are happy to assist with questions.

Information from the Boards:

FUN - Per reported from the latest FUN meeting where a new model for dividing funds for research was discussed. FUN is of the opinion that the number of PhDs produced should be an important criterion for the allocation of funds to the institutions as well as the amount of published articles. An additional given criterion is the amount of funds attracted from research organizations in competition with other universities. The Chairman will forward FUN’s viewpoints to the commission working out the new rules. A decision about the design of the model is expected to be takenwithin the coming weeks.

Furthermore, GU is working on changing its structure in order to reduce the administrative burden and increase effectiveness. A decrease in faculties is intended which, very likely, is going to affect HGU and its institutions.

At the latest FUN meeting Per presented the report from Handels Consulting on the work situation and experience of a sample of former Business Administration PhDs. An interesting observation was that the most often mentioned motivations for conducting doctoral studies among these students was self-development and heading towards a career as a researcher. However, for most of the respondents teaching is the main work activity now. The report will be sent to all FID members and shall be discussed at the next meeting in order to provide our main conclusions to the Director of Study.

Ewa Wikström has the local PhD manual (FEK-Doktorandhandboken) and the revision of the general plan of study (Allmänna Studieplan) as her main priorities. FID is to assist her in this work.

FUN further discussed the evaluation of the compulsory F1 courses. The work with the evaluations should be systematized and followed up. This indicates that there is a broader interest in securing the quality of the F1 courses and thus the Research Program.

HHDR - Johan informed that information on the new introductory course for Handels PhDs is still missing. Johan and Jon will inquire at the next meeting as we need to know how the new students will be affected. Johan will also raise FID’s opinion about taking a licentiate which is that it should be an option and not a requirement to take a licentiate in order to achieve the final aim of a PhD.

Further discussed was that it has become common for EU universities to take a GMAT as a requirement for admission to PhD studies. FID is to give their opinion if this is appropriate or not in a Swedish/GU setting.

Miscellaneous

It was decided to have the first Open PhD Lunch on 24th September.

The next meeting will be in week 37, dates to be suggested.

Chairman and Secretary of the meeting

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Gabriela SchaadAdjusted: Per Thilander