No new doctoral students within CSC
KTH will not accept any new doctoral students under the current agreement with the China Scholarship Council, CSC.
The reason is that the transparency of the conditions between CSC and its scholarship holders is not sufficient.
"Yes, we are talking about more than ten doctoral projects that we will not announce next year, when the agreement also expires," says Stefan Östlund, Vice President for International relations.
Mapping sholarship funding
The background to the decision is an inspection report published this summer by the Swedish higher education authority, UKÄ. The report, Doctoral students with foreign scholarship funding , has been circulated to various universities for consultation, and in the report UKÄ has mapped how different universities deal with these issues.
According to UKÄ, the survey shows that there may be unknown agreements between the scholarship holder and the CSC, which makes it difficult for HEIs to assess whether the scholarship conditions are reasonable - as they should be according to the Higher Education Ordinance.
“I think this is a good solution and means that we can correct and improve the transparency of all future agreements so that the conditions are perceived as reasonable by all parties. But it is important to emphasize that the decision does not apply to visiting researchers, postdocs or one-year scholarships from China," Östlund says.
Avoiding in general
According to the Higher Education Ordinance, the main rule is that doctoral students can receive a grant for one year, after which they must be employed. But there are two exceptions. Firstly, when it comes to aid and capacity building with transparent conditions.
However, in its response to the consultation, KTH is puzzled by UKÄ's interpretations regarding EU-funded scholarship programmes and other collaborations.
“ We have many well-established and well-functioning scholarship systems where reasonable conditions can be ensured. In some cases, therefore, accepting scholarships can be part of a functioning collaboration, even if it is a form of funding that we generally avoid and do not want to expand,” says Anders Söderholm, KTH's President.
The answer to UKÄ from KTH Svar till UKÄ (pdf 133 kB) (in Swedish)
Text: Jill Klackenberg