Survey exposes doctoral student’s struggles
Lack of routines and administrative processes, demanding working conditions, feelings of isolation. The doctoral students at KTH wish for more, a survey shows.
KTH boasts approximately 1,900 PhD students, a diverse community hailing from various countries and many often far from home. In an effort to understand their experiences, KTH’s PhD Chapter embarked on an extensive survey in the spring of 2023, delving into research education from the student's viewpoint. The findings highlight a mixed landscape. While the quality of education stands strong, significant challenges emerge: from the absence of routines and administrative structures to demanding work conditions, feelings of isolation, and notable health concerns intertwined with research education, according to Ugne Miniotaite of the PhD Chapter.
What surprised you the most in the survey?
“The critical mental and physical health problems experienced by a large part of third cycle students at KTH. Even more so the feeling of helplessness and not knowing where to turn.”
Is there a difference in the results between schools?
“In general, things look very similar across schools, with some differences in certain topics. I think this really shows that the challenges within research education are quite universal and not specific to a certain field. Especially pertaining to relationships with supervisor and working conditions.”
How can KTH improve?
“The survey results show a clear correlation between the culture around work expectation, (working hours, time scheduling, …), and negative stress, leading to health issues. I believe a clear culture shift around expected student working conditions is crucial for student health at KTH.”
“Another aspect should be an improvement in centralized processes regarding onboarding and relaying of information about Swedish systems and rights as a worker. Like assistance with administrative processes of being in Sweden (e.g. with Migrationsverket). In the survey, we can already see year-by-year improvement in number of students receiving on-boarding due to initiatives taken to address this from both the PhD Chapter and KTH.”
“Recently, KTH has initiated the project ‘Doctoral Office’, which to me seems like a great basis for tackling these issues. On top of that, the survey also reveals the need for better routines regarding third-cycle course information. What courses are given, when they are given and what they contain.”
What are the bright spots in the survey?
“There are absolutely positive take-aways from the survey. For one, we can see that overall satisfaction with course quality is quite high. Something else we can see from the survey is that we have a very high feeling of collegiality amongst the research student population.”
Text: Anna Gullers