You book your research or review seminar by email to Marianne Lagerklint. PhD seminars are usually on Thursdays at 2.15 pm in the main lecture room (C609).

For all seminars a signed list of attendees must be submitted to the Director of Doctoral Studies afterwards. The list should be written on the printed announcement for the seminar.

Research seminars

Research seminars consist of a 20-25 minutes presentation and 5-10 minutes discussion. The one hour time slot can be shared between two students.
Tip: make your first research seminar about your previous diploma or master project. Following that, you are encourage to give one reseach seminar each year of your PhD.

Review seminars

Review seminars consist of 40-45 minutes presentation and 15-20 minutes question and discussion. They are usually arranged in a similar matter as the research seminars. But instead of presenting your own research, you choose 1-2 scientific papers or a specific topic to present.

Feedback for research and review seminars

You have the opportunity of having one seminar per year filmed. You will be contacted one week in advance to check if you want to be filmed.

In addition, an evaluation form is distributed after the presentation.

Discussion seminars

You organize discussion seminars yourself, whenever you find a topic or a paper that can be interesting to discuss.

1. Choose a topic or a scientific paper that can be discussed in detail.
2. Choose a time and a place (usually one of the conference rooms).
3. Send an email (including the paper or topic) to all PhD students and reseachers and ask who would be interested in the discussion. You need at least 4 PhD students and 1 researcher at the meeting.
4. Prepare your seminar. First, you give a short presentation of the paper/topic. Also, prepare some opening questions to start off the dicussion. A discussion seminar usually lasts for 1 hour.

Ethics seminar

According to a decision made by the Faculty Board, it is compulsory for all graduate students admitted after Jan 1, 2007, to attend a Ethics seminar once before you graduate. The seminar is organized once every semester, usually at the Department of Physics. When the date is set, PhD students receive an email with more information.

The seminar on Ethics in Research is based on the booklet "On being a Scientist" (A guide to responsible conduct in research) third edition, from National Academy of Sciences. When you have signed up, you will recieve a copy of the booklet well in advance of the seminar. You should study this booklet before the seminar and you are assumed to take active part in the seminar.

The PhD fellow has the responsibility to call for the meeting and hand in signed documents to the Head of Administration one month before the renewal of his/her contract.

If a date and time cannot be agreed upon by all committee members, the PhD fellow decides a date on which a majority of members can attend, with preference given to the attendance of a maximum of external committee members.

Permission needs to be granted by the Head of Administration if handing in the signed Individual Study Plan will occur later than the set deadline mentioned above.

If one or several committee members are unable to attend due to temporal reasons (e.g. sabbatical or parental leave) or permanent reasons (e.g. not working at MISU), the PhD fellow informs the Director of Doctoral Studies, who will then decide on new external members.

The committee is a resource for the PhD fellow and its task is to evaluate supervision and scientific and educational progress made during the past year, as well as to discuss plans for the coming year.

The committee should also assist and support the PhD fellow in case problems regarding supervision or progress arise during the education.

The external committee members need to be notified by the PhD fellow before the start of the meeting so problems can be discussed during the meeting.

The committee meeting is chaired by an external member, chosen by those external members.

The PhD fellow may invite a senior graduate student to participate in the meeting, in which he/she acts as support or mentor and in which he/she independently can evaluate the progress of the meeting.

The PhD fellow shall bring the following documents to the meeting:

• Individual Study Plan (from previous years and for the upcoming year)
  - for the first year: written by the fellow and supervisors before the meeting and discussed or updated with the committee during the meeting
  - for the next years: as decided by the committee during the 1st meeting (either blank or filled out)
• Transcript of Records (from Ladok)
• List of attended seminars (given by Director of Doctoral Studies)
• List of assistantship hours (given by Head of Admin)
• When the fellow has the 1st committee meeting:  a 2 page document describing the planned research of the PhD studies, written by the PhD fellow
• When the fellow starts the 4th year of studies: estimated remaining time until defence (given by Head of Administration)
• An updated research plan (maximum 1 page)
• A PDF of the last given research seminar, send by email to all committee members

In case of disagreements between members of the committee, the PhD fellow will notify the Director of Doctoral Studies.

All relevant forms can be found on the MISU internal web. If you have problems accessing the forms, please contact the Director of Doctoral Studies.