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Individual study plan (ISP)

This information is aimed at doctoral students and supervisors at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE)

A study plan must be established for each doctoral student. The study plan serves as a regulatory tool for the

 entire length of the doctoral education to ensure that the studies are conducted and followed up in an efficient manner.

For this purpose, there is a web-based tool for management of the individual study plan: the ISP system. See the web link to the right for more information on the system

How to get started with the ISP-system?

Employees and doctoral students at KTH can find a link to the ISP-system under Services in their personal menu at KTH.se. You may need to add the service to your personal menu by clicking the gear-button under Services.

Picture of personal meny on KTH-Website

Supervisors employed at KTH are usually already available in the system, but external supervisors may need to be added manually by a doctoral studies officer.

Contact the doctoral studies officers if an external supervisor is missing in the ISP-system.

When is the ISP due for revision?

Upon admission, the main supervisor and the doctoral student are given a date – 5 weeks after the admission date – when the first ISP must be available in the system to the doctoral studies officers.

The ISP must also be revised and established at least once per year. The responsibility to ensure that there is an ISP available to the doctoral studies director for approval lies on the main supervisor.

For a degree application the latest established ISP must include the courses (as planned or completed) required by the general syllabus (in Swedish: allmän studieplan för forskarutbildningsämnet, ASP) for the doctoral subject.

Who examines the ISP?

At the ABE School, the doctoral studies administrator at the respective department has the role of "Program Administrator / Director of Studies" in the system.

The ISP is reviewed by several people and can either be approved and passed on to the next person in the process or sent back to the doctoral student for possible changes.

Only the doctoral student and the main supervisor can edit the ISP.

The workflow for creating a study plan involves users with different permissions and roles. An ISP is initiated by either the main supervisor creating a first version or a revision of the last established version. It is also possible for the doctoral student to create a revision of an already established version. Then the ISP is examined in turns by the doctoral student, main supervisor, doctoral studies administrator, doctoral studies officer and the process ends with the director of doctoral studies (in Swedish: forskartutbildningsansvarig, FA) establishing the ISP.

The ISP Process

The doctoral studies officers have created a guide for examining ISPs. It is used by them and the doctoral studies administrators. This guide is also useful for doctoral students and main supervisors to avoid the ISP being sent back due to missing items etc. Note that this guide is only in Swedish but it does contain suggested phrases in English to use, e.g., for credit transfers.

Guide for examine ISP (Only in Swedish) (pdf 271 kB)

There are also examples  on how to fill out section 9 "Degree objectives".

We also advice you to have the doctoral subject syllabus  at hand when filling in the ISP. The syllabus specifies among other things the number of course credits (in Swedish: högskolepoäng, hp) required for a degree in the subject, as well as which courses are mandatory and which are recommended.