Research School

Research School Leader

• Else Mundal, CMS

There are a considerable number of doctoral students in the Nordic countries, but usually only a few at each university, where they also belong to different disciplines. The NCMS Research School seeks to overcome these difficulties by offering a programme for exchange of junior scholars, giving generous grants to encourage mobility between universities belonging to the NCMS as well as to other universities inside or outside Scandinavia.

We have in the main three types of research school activities. PhD-students are the main target, but the activities are open for selected master students as well as for postdocs and for other senior professionals who want to raise their level of competence in a particular skill or field.

Joint supervising: NCMS PhD-students are offered a second supervisor, preferably from another country and from an adjacent field. Thus, a small investment will enrich a PhD dissertation with more vantage points and empower the young scholars to master the possibilities and limits of interdisciplinarity earlier than they would otherwise have done. We seek to stimulate joint supervising also by offering fixed-term fellowships to PhD-students of 6-12 months spent at one of the other nodes in the network.

Seminars at the nodes: This take the form of work-in-progress seminars and thematic seminars. At regular intervals each node arranges work-in-progress seminars where the PhD students present the status of their projects. Thematic seminars, on the other hand, will typically involve all teams, or parts of all three, to throw light on a certain methodological, chronological, or geographical area. Here the contributions are a mixture of lectures from senior scholars, Nordic and foreign, and papers by junior scholars.

Summer school: Certain skills and themes are best taught in intensive courses of ca one week’s duration. These courses are designed and announced in such a way that they can attract both Nordic and foreign master and PhD students as well as professionals who work at institutions that focus on teaching and mediation rather than research. They are meant to give the students as well professionals access to those scholars doing cutting-edge research in the field.