The Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) assessment group finds this after reviewing PhD educations in Sweden in 2020. The assessment group also regard that the department's PhD education focuses on the doctoral student's learning and are supervised by active researchers, which means that they are naturally part of an academic research environment.
Eva Thulin, Professor in Human Geography and Head of the PhD education at the Department of Economy and Society says;
- It is great to see that the external reviewers consider our PhD education to be of high quality, and that we can offer a stimulating and safe learning environment for our doctoral students. The reviewers also point out a number of good and important suggestions for further improvements, which we now have started working on. For example, this includes finding ways to better integrate the units' seminar activities and further develop the use of individual study plans (ISPs) as meaningful tools for students and supervisors.
Handled the Corona pandemic exemplary
In 2020, PhD education, like so much else, has been affected by the Corona pandemic. A crisis of this kind involves an examination of how robust an organization is when it comes to dealing with sudden changes. UKÄ's assessment group perceives that the department has handled the situation in an exemplary manner and there has been a capacity to implement the necessary measures and restrictions in a way that has affected the doctoral students as little as possible.
Joint doctoral seminars start in spring 2021
The doctoral students come from three different units with different subject areas and the department wants to increase the integration between the units. In addition, there is a request from UKÄ for a higher presence of young researchers at the seminar, to contribute to the scientific learning process that a good seminar culture represents. Therefore, from January onwards, the department will start up joint doctoral seminars.
