[Drand] VB: Regarding your situation as a PhD student during the COVID-19 pandemic

[Kajsa Blomdahl]

To all PhD students at Stockholm University,



We, in the Central PhD council (CDR), write to inform about what we have been working on this year and how you, as a PhD student, can influence your situation regarding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.



The CDR is a central council that exists to be the voice of the PhD students at SU. The members of the council are representatives from all three faculties (Faculty of Law, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Social Science).

Since the spring, our main focus has been to make sure that the PhD students get the support that they need from a central level.



CDR wrote a statement in May about the situation that the PhD students were experiencing.

The statement declared that we wanted the senior management at SU to acknowledge the difficult situation, to take action and guide the PhD students in how they could manage in these difficult times.

This led to a decision from the President of the University, Astrid Söderbergh Widding, which stated that “special consideration of the effects of the pandemic on the studies shall be given during the annual revision of the individual study plans.”



However, we received feedback from many PhD students that they did not know where in the ISP this should be written. It was also unclear if it could lead to any compensation and who was responsible for making these decisions.

Therefore, we asked for clarification regarding this and received a reply stating that a template (used as an appendix to the ISP) can be used in order to write down how you have been affected by the pandemic.



The Board of Human Science and the Board of science are responsible for judging if and how the PhD students should be compensated, to have contact with the departments and to report what actions are taken to the President.



So, attached you will find a template written by CDR in order to facilitate you in this process.

As you will see in the template, we propose issues that you could include.

These are mainly suggestions, feel free to add/remove/change the template to better suit your individual situation.



After you complete the template, it should be sent to the Head of Studies for PhD students (studierektor för doktorander) at your department.



That person should then make sure that the Board of Human Science or the Board of Science receives this information (depending on which board your department belongs to).

This template does not have the same deadline as the ISP, so if you already have sent in your ISP, you can still send in the template.



If you already stated how you had been affected in the ISP, but you feel like you want to add something, you can also fill in the template and send it to the Head of Studies at your department.





Here you can also read a text<https://www.su.se/staff/personnel/words-from-the-university-s-senior-management-team/being-a-doctoral-student-during-the-pandemic-1.525665> from the Deputy Vice Presidents Henrik Cederquist, Astri Muren, Elisabeth Wåghäll Nivre published on the SU-website commenting the PhD student’s situation.







All the best,

>From the members of CDR,

Rebecca Fältén

Pascal Meier

Clàudia Figueras Julián

Allison Geerts

Hari Nair

Conrad Bakka

Maryann Su Lin Tan

Milena Podolsak

Julia Dahlqvist

Tove Lindgren

Jenny Wirén



Central PhD Council (cdr at sus.su.se<mailto:cdr at sus.su.se>)


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