“This survey is conducted every two years and the response rate in this round was higher than in 2019. A total of 61 per cent of our own admitted doctoral students responded to the survey and 32 per cent of our HB-affiliated doctoral students did so. The results show that a majority of our doctoral students are satisfied with their doctoral education programmes and the supervision they receive. The vast majority of doctoral students wish to continue with an academic career after completing their degrees and would consider the University of Borås as a continued employer,” she said.

However, the degree of satisfaction is slightly lower in this survey round than in 2019, the survey shows.

“According to the free text answers we received, COVID-19 has had a major impact on several doctoral students' studies. This will be followed up in particular in a separate survey sent out to doctoral students in August.”

The area where the greatest efforts and measures need to be concentrated is around doctoral students' work and study environment. The results show that doctoral students are to a large extent affected by work-related stress and fatigue. There have also been some cases of discrimination linked to protected grounds of discrimination.

“This is something that university leadership takes seriously and that must be dealt with,” she emphasised.

A university-wide action plan is being formed and it is the Directors of Studies for the doctoral programmes who are leading this work with the support of Research Education Coordinator Hanna Kantola and the Research Officers at the Faculty Support Office. Furthermore, each individual doctoral programme must analyse the results and we need to establish separate action plans. Supervisors of doctoral students are an important part of this work.

“The results divided up by doctoral studies programmes have already been made available in large parts of the university and I have participated in various forums and spoken about this,” she said.

The compilation of the report is ongoing and is expected to be completed in the first week of May.

All doctoral students have been invited to a meeting on 12 May with Vice Chancellor Mats Tinnsten to discuss the results.

Joint meeting for all student surveys

A university-wide meeting will be held to discuss the results of all three completed student surveys, the Student Barometer, Boråsakademikern, and the Doctoral Student Barometer, to see if there are common development areas for all three levels of education. In addition, university employees will have the opportunity to submit comments and suggestions for changes to the design of the surveys prior to the next survey. This meeting is scheduled to take place at the end of May.