Christmas Newsletter from the PhD Council

Christmas is upon us, but before the new year arrives we would like to provide you with a little bit of information concerning our activities in the last few weeks.

Christmas is upon us, but before the new year arrives we would like to provide you with a little bit of information concerning our activities in the last few weeks.

A new representative for temporary employees was elected to the faculty board
Elections for a new representative for temporary staff on the faculty board for the Faculty of Law was held just before Christmas. The outcome was as follows:
  • Permanent representative: Daniel Arnesson (NIFS, member of the PhD Council)
  • 1st alternate: Matthew Saul (PluriCourts)
  • 2nd alternate: Anna Andersson (NCHR)
Do you have a costly research project/design?
Or do you for different reasons need more than the 60.000 in funding ("driftsmidler") in your PhD period? Your are now encouraged to apply your department for extra funding. The Faculty encourages all departments to inform their candidates that they can apply if they have greater needs.

The background for this is that the PhD council in October suggested through the Faculty board that PhD scholars can apply for funding from a common 'pot' if they need more funding than the already assigned 15.000 NOK a year ('driftsmidler'). The suggestion is particularly relevant for PhD candidates with costly research projects, due to for example data collection. These candidates (and administrative support staff) are now using too much time to raise funding/apply for relatively small amounts outside their departments. Particularly in departments without big surpluses in their budgets. In addition to the economy in such use of time, this can limit projects in several unfortunate ways. We thought that how such application process should be arranged as practical and unbureaucratic as possible must be sorted out, but the suggestion was anyhow that the pot is funded from the Faculty. By this the candidates at our Faculty do not have unequal research funding as a result of the varied economy in the different departments. The Faculty also has a significant surplus in 2014.

As a result of the PhD Council's suggestion, the Faculty investigated the situation among the departments. The case was unfortunately not put on the agenda on the December Faculty Board meeting. But we got some temporary information now from the Faculty about this case. Next year's PhD Council will come back with more information about this issue when the formal process is done.

Passing the torch
This is the final newsletter that you will receive from the 2014 PhD Council. We thank you for the support throughout the year, and wish the PhD Council of 2015 good luck!
In closing...
... we would like to remind you that we want to hear your opinions on the topics we are working on, and tips as to issues we should put on our agenda. We are open for feedback at any time! Just grab a hold of one of us, or send us an e-mail on stip-rad@jus.uio.no.
For more information concerning our work, please see the minutes of our meetings, which are available on our website: http://foreninger.uio.no/stipendiatradet/english/minutes/


God jul og godt nytt år!

Best regards
The PHD Council at The Faculty of Law
(Stipendiatrådet ved Det juridiske fakultet)

Publisert 23. des. 2014 17:45