According to § 7 paragraph2 of the PhD Order, the PhD student should gain experience in teaching or other forms of knowledge dissemination. All dissemination activities must be approved by the PhD committee. The PhD Committee has decided that the extent of knowledge dissemination should be at least 300 working hours.
As the student's employment agreement contains a requirement that students who are employed at the university should be assigned in the employment period, tasks corresponding to at least 840 hours of paid work (around a half years full time work), the necessary knowledge dissemination will usually be achieved through teaching for the Department.
It should be noted that the requirement of 840 hours of paid work does not apply to PhD students who are only enrolled for the degree and are not employed. PhD students who are employed in a PhD position have the possibility of completely or partially renouncing the right to the 840 hours of work, with a corresponding reduction in wages. See Enrolment and Employment.
For all PhD students, regardless of whether they are employed by the university or only enrolled for the degree, there is a requirement for disseminating knowledge or teaching for 300 hours in order to obtain the PhD degree.
All dissemination activities must be approved by the PhD Committee. There is a special application form for approval of knowledge dissemination Note that the PhD Committee only approves dissemination of knowledge activities twice during the course of study: halfway through the programme and immediately prior to completion of studies.
If the PhD student teaches more than 300 hours as part of the 840 hours of paid work, then it is not necessary to apply to the PhD Committee for approval of the dissemination of knowledge. However, proof of the execution of the 840 hours must be issued before the completion of studies.
Rules for calculating knowledge dissemination hours
Posters and short presentation (less than 40 min.) held externally count for 30 knowledge dissemination hours. A longer presentation (at least 40 min.) held externally counts for 50 knowledge dissemination hours. An internal presentation counts for 5 dissemination hours. Where the same presentation is repeated once or more, the student will not be able to receive the full amount of hours on each occasion. If a presentation is less than 40 minutes long, the first occasion gives 30 knowledge dissemination hours, the second 15 knowledge dissemination hours and every subsequent occasion receives 5 knowledge dissemination hours each.
Activities that can be credited as knowledge dissemination
- presentations and posters
- articles conveying scientific information to the general public
- in certain cases, scientific articles
- production of books
- commissioned research
- internal presentations
Activities that can be credited as knowledge dissemination and as work commitment
- teaching for the Department
- supervision of fellow students/technical staff (however with respect to knowledge dissemination, this should be credited with a maximum of 100 hours per person supervised).
- dissemination tasks
Activities that can be credited as work commitment
Activities under this paragraph must be relevant to the PhD student, but cannot be directly included in the student's research project.
- work duties imposed by the Head of Department which are performed for the Department
- work duties imposed by the Head of Department which are conducted for the research group
Time spent on teaching is calculated according to the principles for the calculation of working hours for PhD students.
For PhD students on the Industrial PhD programme it may be agreed on between the PhD School, the Head of Department and the collaboration partner that the experience of teaching and knowledge dissemination is achieved through activities with the collaboration partner. The time assigned for the Industrial Report is set at 120 hours.
Plans for carrying out the provision in the PhD Order regarding teaching experience or other forms of knowledge dissemination must be stated in the PhD plan, and be approved by the PhD Committee. Often it is not possible to set out a detailed plan and it is then up to the principal supervisor and the PhD student to periodically fill out the schedule.
Note that the PhD Committee approves the dissemination of knowledge only twice in the course of study: halfway through the programme and immediately prior to the completion of studies.