[Drand] Information about applying for extension due to the pandemic

[Nadia Flodgren]

Hi PhD students at Fysikum,


If you think you have been delayed in your PhD studies due to the pandemic and that the delay is longer than the one month of extension some of us received from the corona recovery programme, we encourage you to apply for extension (following the advice from the research education committee at the natural sciences faculty). Therefore, we send you this email to give you some information about the process and eligibility.

First, some general information about applying for extension with respect to the pandemic. The process for applying for extension due to special reasons is given on the webpages:

- Corona specific information on the Fysikum webpage, under the headline "prolongation":https://www.su.se/department-of-physics/news/information-for-students-and-staff-about-the-coronavirus-1.595133


- The Fysikum webpage, under the headline "prolongation of study funding": https://www.su.se/department-of-physics/education/courses-and-programmes/study-funding-during-postgraduate-education-1.512219?eventopenforinternationalstudents=true&notforcedreason=0&open-collapse-boxes=ccbd-prolongationofstudyfunding

- The Science Faculty webpage; instructions for applying for extension: https://www.science.su.se/english/rules-regulations/guidelines-for-research-education/extension-of-the-period-doctoral-students-with-reference-to-special-reasons-1.563582


Second, regarding eligibility to apply, it is important to remark that you don't need to have been severely affected by the pandemic, but you need to be able to motivate your case with good reasons. If you have been delayed in your studies due to tangible negative effects of the pandemic, these are valid reasons for applying for extension. Reasons such as missing conferences, lack of collaborations or lack of support while working from home are valid, in addition to more severe reasons such as not being able to collect data for your research. Other, intangible delays such as lack of motivation and productivity while working from home we understand are compensated by the corona recovery programme, at least to some extent. Mental health reasons such as loneliness and depression should be treated rather as reasons for sick leave and not as reasons for extension. It is ideal, but not necessary, to make your supervisor aware of your application in order to get their support. In the application you need to suggest an appropriate amount of time for your extension but the faculty can decide to give you that or less time.

Regarding the corona recovery program, the possibility of having a second run of it, this time only eligible for PhD students who were not eligible for the first run (i.e. students who started their PhD during the pandemic), is currently being discussed in KUF but nothing has been decided yet.


Please, if you have any doubts feel free to reach to us or to the PhD directors (Per-Erik Tegnér and Sten Hellman).

Best regards,
Nadia Flodgren and Jorge Laraña Aragón
on behalf of the Fysikum PhD council board.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.su.se/pipermail/drand-at-fysik.su.se/attachments/20220420/50d3912e/attachment.html>