Better opportunities for talented young researchers

Each national graduate-level researcher school consists of a network of institutions that contribute in various ways such as arranging joint courses or sharing laboratory facilities. The researcher schools comprise separate networks for training doctoral students. The Research Council will provide funding for a period of eight years.

Strengthening researcher training

“The Research Council wishes to invest more in talented young academics. The allocations to national graduate-level researcher schools are a means of improving the quality of researcher training. It means a lot both to the individual doctoral candidates and to the educational institutions as a whole,” says Anders Hanneborg, Executive Director of the Division for Science of the Research Council.

The national graduate-level researcher school scheme was launched in 2008 with an initial five programmes.

Each national graduate-level researcher school consists of a network of institutions that contribute in various ways such as arranging joint courses or sharing laboratory facilities. Areas that benefit most from collaboration

“We are working to strengthen researcher training in those areas that stand to gain the most from collaboration between institutions,” Mr Hanneborg explains.

“Thus, the researcher schools are to incorporate a network of subject areas. On their own, many of these groups are too small to offer a full-fledged doctoral programme. Cooperation between institutions is economically beneficial and leads to higher quality programmes.”

Different types of institution

All the new researcher schools have many different partners: from four to ten universities, university colleges and independent research institutes are working together in each network. Partners work together to arrange joint courses and meetings, provide supplementary capacity for student supervisory activities and share each other’s laboratory facilities in areas where this is relevant.

Each researcher school has a degree-conferring institution – either a university or university college – serving as the responsible administrative institution and project owner.

The inclusion of a variety of independent research institutes as partners gives this type of institution a more prominent role in the training of doctoral candidates as well.

Budget growth targeted towards young researchers

It is evident that young researchers have difficulty competing successfully against experienced researchers for funding of research projects under the regular programmes and initiatives.

As an additional measure for improving conditions for young researchers, the Research Council has recommended an increase to the budget from 2014. This is intended to provide support for outstanding young researchers at an early stage in their careers.