Renewed assignment for the ABE School's Directors of Third Cycle Education
Since 1 January 2019, Anders Karlström is the Director of Third Cycle Education and Karin Edvardsson Björnberg is the Deputy Director of Third Cycle Education at the ABE School. Now their assigments have been renewed. Much has happened during the period that is now coming to an end, and they see many important tasks during the coming four years.
What has happened during your first four years?
“The new quality assurance system within the university area was implemented and has soon been in place for a full cycle. The quality assurance system is now undergoing a revision, and we take part in this review from the perspective of the third cycle education.”
“We have worked with the Programme Directors with reviewing the general study plans and our third cycle programmes. The work means that we have had the opportunity to revise how we can assure exam goals, e.g. when it comes to principle disciplines and research law and ethics. In the latter case, we have also offered seminars, arranged by the KTH Library and Research Support Office, aimed at supervisors.”
Which are the strengths of the third cycle education at the ABE School?
“The ABE School offers third cycle education with a huge range, compared to some other schools at KTH. Our third cycle education encompasses natural science, technology, social science, humanities and design. We have noticed that it creates an awareness about different scientific fields, methods, norms and traditions in our research environments, which can also be captured in the third cycle education.”
“One challenge, which isn't unique to the ABE School, is how to maintain quality in smaller subjects. At KTH we have chosen to organize doctoral programmes that contain several subjects, and perhaps we still have an unutilized potential to use the programme level in the quality work. Here we can see that different strategies have been chosen at KTH.”
What do you see as important endeavours during the coming period?
“Following an assignment to the vice president for education, we will review routines regarding which courses are offered and communications around this, as well as intensify the work on course analyses within the third cycle education. Questions about the integration of gender equality, diversity and equal conditions will remain a priority. We will continue working with an ongoing forum for collegial dialogue in the tutor college when it comes to quality issues in the third cycle education. We will further take part in work on the education of the future, from the perspective of the third cycle education. We finally want to highlight that doctoral student representatives in e.g. programme councils, are making a very important contribution to the quality work.”