EXPECTIONS AND COMPETENCES OF DOCTORAL

STUDENTS

Jarkko Suhonen

IMPDET-LE Preparatory Workshop, January 2014

Initiation

•You need to be pro-active, not waiting for the supervisor(s) to take contact or give tasks to do

– Explore the IMPDET website, Wiki and other available resources

– Find information, create contacts

•You should be in-charge and master of the progress of the studies

– Supervisors’ role is to act as a quality assurance and to give ideas, advices and suggestions

About the study requirements

• You need to find out about different aspects related to the PhD studies

– Literature & Background– Research methodologies– Ethical issues

•You are expected to initiative possible collaboration with other doctoral and master students, as well as seniors in our research group or other research groups

– Start building up a research network early on

• Doctoral studies require you to deal with uncertainty and open situations

– Different from master studies– flexibility and ability to deal with uncertainty is required =>

The process can not be predicted before hand

Balance: Independency vs. supervisors’ suggestions

•Any major decision regarding the research topic and content of the studies need to be discussed with the supervisor

– Some of the supervisors might also want to be kept in loop with minor issues

– Find out from the supervisor what is major and minor

•You should be able to be self-organising and taking initiative, but at the same time respect and follow the recommendations given by the supervisor

Be active in finding funding

•It is expected that you are active in applying research funding

– Personal grants

– R&D collaboration with companies

– Resources• Local Finnish funding agencies

• EU

• African Union, African Development Bank

•The aim: each student writes at least one research funding application & proposal during the studies

•IMPDET-LE Wiki; Funding sources for PhD students - https://wiki.uef.fi/x/jgi9AQ

Plagiarism & Technical matters

• Plagiarism is not tolerated– Serious problems with continuing of studies– Including also self-plagiarism

• Each paper needs to have an own message

– UEF will have Turnitin license in use starting from Spring 2014

• Supervisor should not be responsible for language and technical formatting of the research papers

– check the language carefully by yourself or find help from friends => When the paper is accepted, department might be able to provide support for getting language check

– check the list of references and references in the text carefully before giving the paper for commenting (instructions from the publication forum) + also figures and tables

• Create a research website– Disseminate articles you have published– Write about the progress of the studies, keep a research diary or blog

Communication

•Find out the main communication channel for supervisors– Erkki; mobile phone/SMS => suggest time for Skype or ask to

check the email– Jarkko; email, Skype– Calkin; email, Skype– Give a suggestion of how the organise the communication

• Monthly meetings?• Online collaboration platform to share documents and maybe even have

some discussions (?)– UEF Wiki, Edmodo, Trello, Google Tools (??)

•Always take notes when you have a meeting with the supervisor– Do not expect him/her to remember what you have discussed and

agreed in the meetings– A good strategy is to share the notes via net or online collaboration

platform