Overall formal structure
Recurring formal support
Every half year
Every year in autumn
The PhD plan is jointly prepared by you and your supervisors and a complete PhD plan must be submitted no later than 2 months after the beginning of your PhD study. Later amendments to the plan can be submitted in connection with the half-year evaluations. In fact you are encouraged to update your PhD plan every 6 months. Ask your PhD buddy or supervisor for an example as inspiration.
Some parts of the plan should be put directly into the PhD planner:
You can find a template for a PhD plan in the box to the right.
Info will follow
The collaboration and cooperation between PhD and TAP is very important. To help with this work we have created some documents to describe and plan the work:
The documents can be found in the box to the right.
Your work as a buddy is very important. As a buddy you are expected to help new PhD students adapt to the new environment and to make sure that they become an integrated part of the research environment in the section and in the department. You shall be available for assistance and act as a go-to-person.
Expectations
As a buddy you are expected to help the new student with the following:
Twice a year (before half-year evaluations), a member of the PhD program committee in AGRO will call you in for a “Wellbeing conversation”.
The purpose of the talks is to offer you an opportunity to address issues which might not be easy to discuss with the supervisor, but which can have a profound impact on your well-being. This can be subjects such as the progression of your PhD (on an overall level) and how the cooperation with your supervisor and other staff plays out.
An important subject in the talks is also to take stock on your social well-being, both with regard to work, work-life balance, or any other issues. Examples on topics to discuss could be: loneliness, stress, cultural or gender issues, ideas for improvements (personally or for all students), ideas for student events, or any subject which is important for you at the time of conversation.
The talks are mandatory and confidential and no minutes are made. If needed, a plan for improvement of your well-being will be prepared and followed up upon. Thus, no action is taken unless agreed with you.
You are welcome to contact the PhD program member at any time.
The PhD Lunch Seminar takes place during the first half-year after the initiation of your studies.
The actual date is arranged by the PhD secretary and you approximately three (3) months before the day of the presentation.
The seminar lasts a total of 30 minutes including feedback and possible questions. The presentation itself is advised to take between 15 to 20 minutes.
The nature of the presentation is to introduce your project to your colleagues, give an overview of the relative activities planned as well as describe the work to be done.
It includes two segments; the first one focusing on the scientific aspects, principles and hypotheses posed by you and the second on the PhD activities and requirements that you plan to complete such as publications, shift of work environment, courses taken, etc.
Your main Supervisor will briefly introduce you at the beginning of the seminar. In the occasion of him/her not being available, then the task is transferred to the closest member of the PhD Committee.
After your presentation is over there is a short feedback session, where the PhD Committee members present have the task to offer comments and pose questions in regards to the proposed PhD plan and structure and advise you if certain aspects seem irregular or possibly non feasible for that particular case. Scientific nature comments and questions are also welcomed if the fields of research are relevant and similar. Fellow PhD students are encouraged to give you relevant feedback both in connection to your topic but also more general feedback on your presentation technique etc.
In AGRO the half-year evaluations should be made by 1st March and 1st September.
For the PhD student:
You do NOT need to make an evaluation if:
Remember to re-visit your PhD Plan (pdf) and make sure that it is updated. In case of changes, upload a new document.
Your evaluation (corresponding to ½-1 page) should be made directly in the dialogue boxes of the PhD planner system after dialogue with your supervisor.
The evaluation should contain information regarding your progress on:
Please also update specific details on courses, change of environment etc. directly in the PhD Planner system
It is important to state whether things are moving on as planned and if not state the reason why!
When the half-year evaluation is accomplished, you should click “Send to supervisor”. Please be aware that you do not get an email announcement of changes made by supervisor, Head of Programme etc. You need to enter the system and check.
If you are in doubt, on which option to choose please contact your supervisor or Head of Programme.
If you update in your PhD plan outside of the half-year evaluation rolls, the plan should only be saved and not sent for evaluation.
For the Supervisor:
It is important that you make the evaluation thoroughly. Once you have gone over your student’s PhD Plan and evaluation, there are two options. If the evaluation is ready to be passed on in the workflow, click the “Complete assessment. Send to student” button at the bottom of the page. This sends the evaluation back to the student for comments before it is passed on to the Head of Programme. If, the student needs to do further work, before it is ready to be passed on in the workflow, you should click the “Return to student for plan adjustments” button. The evaluation is returned to the student for further work, before it is once again passed on to the supervisor for assessment and final acceptance, to the Head of Programme and finally to the Head of School
When the evaluation has been approved by the Head of Programme and the Head of School, the PhD planner status will change to “awaits student planning”.
The evaluation and previous evaluations can be found in “Plan history”.
Supervisors have the possibility to define an ad hoc course designed specifically for a PhD student. Such a course may include participation in a conference, a short internship with a company or other things. A course description (see below) must be prepared and the supervisor is the course responsible. The ad hoc course must be pre-approved by the Head of Programme chair. When the course is finalized, the student/supervisor sends an E-mail to the Head of Programme (lis.w.de.jonge@agro.au.dk) with the following attachments: The course description, statement from the course responsible with a positive assessment of the course activity.
See a template for scientific course announcement in the box to the right.
See form in the box to the right
The purposes of the Qualifying exam are:
The Qualifying exam takes a form as a midway seminar where you, your supervisor(s) and the external opponents discuss what has been done so far and the priorities to be made in the remaining part of your study. It should therefore be seen as an opportunity to plan the time schedule and scientific program ahead as well as the formalities for finalizing the PhD thesis and conducting the defense.
The exam usually takes place 18 month before submission of the thesis (if you are a 4+4 students it is after 24 months) and consists of your written progress report and an oral exam. More information can be found here: https://phd.tech.au.dk/for-phd-students/progress-report-qualifying-exam
Overview of the process:
AGRO recommends that the PhD thesis is based on normally 3 in extenso peer-reviewed papers published or publishable in internationally recognized journals. This means that the PhD thesis will normally include three or more papers or manuscripts in different stages of completion, which relates to the topic of the PhD project. All parts should have a scientific quality that aligns with the expectations for peer-reviewed publication. Further, the PhD thesis must include sections encompassing the following elements:
If published articles or submitted manuscripts are included in the thesis, you must ensure that you have permission from the publisher to reproduce these in the thesis. The procedure for obtaining permission depends on the publisher and is found on the journals webpage.
Charlotte Hamann Knudsen will take care of setting up the cover page. Charlotte will be assisting with ideas to the cover page if needed.
No later than 1 month before the defence the student should send this to Charlotte Hamann Knudsen (charlotte.knudsen@agro.au.dk):
No later than 14 days before the defence the following should be sent to Charlotte:
If this deadline is not kept the thesis will NOT be printed.
Layout:
The official font at AU is AU Passata or Georgia and the size should be 11, 1.5 line spacing.
The first page of the content should be on a right page.
The page numbers are centered at the bottom of the page 10 mm from the bottom.
Margin is:
Headlines should be size 12 and bold.
It is possible to have up to 20 single pages with colours, the rest of the pages are black/white.
There will be ordered 25 copies in total. 2 copies will be sent to the library and 2 copies will be kept in the department. The student will have the rest of the copies. If more copies are needed the student will have to pay for these. The 4 copies should be delivered by the student to Karina Rysholt Christensen in Foulum or to Charlotte Hamann Knudsen in Flakkebjerg.
All contact to the printing company will go through Charlotte Hamann Knudsen (charlotte.knudsen@agro.au.dk).
Duration of stay up to 10 days |
In AGRO it has been decided that the PhD students receive the standard daily allowances in connection with travels up to 10 days (both in Denmark and abroad). The daily allowances cover additional expenses for meals, small items, transportation at the destination etc., paid by the student during the travel. This means that the company Eurocard should not be used during the travel. If free meals are received it should be deducted when making the travel statement in RejsUd. Additionally, the following will be covered (often via Eurocard before the travel is made):
These rules also apply for PhD students without salary from AU. |
Change of environment* |
All costs related to change of environment should be sent to Karina Rysholt Christensen who will take care of the reimbursement |
As a PhD student your employment include tasks other than the PhD project amounting to a maximum of 280 hours per year, a total of 840 hours during the PhD, cf. “Cirkulære om overenskomst for Akademikere i staten (link)” and GSTS Rules and Regulations (link).
The department is entitled to assign these tasks, often it is handled by your main supervisor and/or the programme chair.
You must report the extent of duty work the PhD planner and it should be updated at each half year evaluation (specified according to the type of work, e.g. name of course, types of communication/presentation). It should also be discussed with your main supervisor. We urge you to keep score of your work.
All dissemination activities (including lectures) are listed in the PhD Planner under “Dissemination”. Any other kind of duty work must be reported under “Other Activity” or a bullet created by you called “Duty work”.
Examples of duty work can be:
Discussion of duty work ought to be on the agenda at your supervisor meetings. Coordinate the expectations to duty work – especially at the first supervisor meeting and in connection with preparation of the curriculum.
W.E.F. is a platform to address all kinds of social, mental, or professional issues related to our work at AGRO-Foulum as well as a forum to share knowledge and relevant links for further help and information.
The group aims at being a dynamic and constructive forum to discuss relevant issues among PhDs and Post Docs. It is dynamic in the sense that topics will develop over time according to the wishes and the needs of the participants. This requires that participants are open and active (also outside of meetings).
W.E.F. is a safe space to discuss issues, challenges, complains, etc. within a closed group but also offers the opportunity to act on specific problems as the group can approach relevant persons or fora, e.g. The Department Forum, if changes are needed. United as a group we are more likely to make ourselves heard by the management/department/university as well as gain self-confidence to deal with issues. Working environment is not an individual issue, and it should be addressed together in the spirit of a union standing together.
The aim of the W.E.F. is to connect PhDs and Post Docs at AGRO-Foulum to facilitate sharing of challenges as well as to discuss and get advice from each other, but we encourage the participants to use it as much as possible, e.g., all participants have the opportunity to form smaller writing groups or other specific constellations that can benefit their specific needs and wishes.
All PhDs and Post Docs from AGRO are very welcome to join W.E.F.! This also includes guest PhDs which are strongly encouraged to participate in order to benefit from the experiences of others. This can be related to the work that is demanded by the university or the expectations we are faced with (or that we put on ourselves). Furthermore, everyone is invited to the Teams channel AGRO share and connect where links and files can be uploaded. Contact the group to join this channel.
Main meetings occur every month, and you should get invitations to the meetings in your outlook calendar via your email. If not, contact PhD student Esben Øster Mortensen (eom@agro.au.dk) or head of the PhD committee Lis Wollesen de Jonge (lis.w.de.jonge@agro.au.dk).
W.E.F. works in a democratic way and all participants are encouraged to take initiative and responsibility. The W.E.F.-moderator group will call for meetings, prepare the meeting agendas and act as moderators during the meetings. The meeting agendas will be based on the wishes from all participants. Anyone who wish to participate in the W.E.F.-moderator group is very much welcome!
