Elisabeth Wåghäll Nivre.

Why is the Faculty of Humanities offering a Doctoral School?

 - After having funded three faculty-wide graduate schools, the Faculty Board decided to launch an initiative aimed at all doctoral students in the faculty. We wanted to create a greater sense of community for the doctoral students, offer a wider range of courses with more opportunities for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work, and improve the efficiency of doctoral education. A clear goal was to create a meeting place for the faculty's doctoral students and to offer everyone the opportunity to be part of a larger research environment in their everyday work.

Has the Doctoral School had any positive effects for the faculty?

- Yes, absolutely. The doctoral students who have participated in the Doctoral School are generally very positive. The activities and courses that we offer every semester have promoted discussions and collaboration between departments and researchers, and have increased the range of courses in doctoral education at many departments. The Doctoral School was evaluated in 2019, and the activities have subsequently been developed to better meet the degree objectives for doctoral education.  
The Doctoral School in the Humanities currently offers third-cycle courses, the opportunity to realize projects within third-cycle education and a Doctoral School Program consisting of three two-day conferences.

Elisabeth Wåghäll Nivre says that the Doctoral School also is meant to matter outside the faculty - at an early stage it was therefore decided that doctoral students from other faculties and universities would be welcome to participate in the courses. 

- Bringing in doctoral students from outside has been perceived as very enriching and they have clearly contributed to promoting both the scientific and the study social relations. We have also realized that other universities are very positive about our Doctoral School. Through the cooperation within the university alliance Civis, we have also gained doctoral students with experience from our various partner universities throughout Europe. They contribute to increasing the internationalization of our doctoral education as well as the opportunities for our doctoral students to build further networks.