Individual PhD courses at the LTV faculty

Individual course syllabus

For the Individual subject course, a specific course syllabus must be written and approved in advance, as each course is individually designed for a specific doctoral student. For all other individual PhD course types, the doctoral student must meet all requirements set out in the relevant general syllabus to be awarded credits.

Individual subject course (1-15 credits)

The course syllabus for an individual subject course must be approved by the Doctoral Education Committee (Fun) at LTV before the course begins. The main supervisor or another senior researcher (e.g. a co-supervisor) writes the course syllabus and submits it to forskarutbildning-LTV@slu.se.

Although the course is called individual, we encourage you to invite fellow doctoral students, since shared courses enable joint reflection and discussion. Individual subject courses may, for example, involve reading literature followed by a seminar or written report, practical activities such as excursions or study visits, or learning a new method such as LCA(Life Cycle Assessment) or GIS(Geographic Information Systems) analysis. Practical training courses carry a maximum of 10 credits; other individual subject courses carry a maximum of 15 credits.

Introductory paper (10 credits)

There are two options: 
1. the doctoral student writes their paper and it is examined by the main 
supervisor before it is published on Epsilon within the first two years of 
their studies, or 
2. the doctoral student submits a draft research overview (review article) 
within the first two years of their studies, which is then examined by the 
principal supervisor. The principal supervisor then sends a transcript to the 
director of studies, which is then recorded in Ladok. To receive the 10 
credits, the article must have been accepted for publication before the 
thesis defence. If this is not possible, the paper is to be published on 
Epsilon before the doctoral student can receive their credits. 

Seminar series (3 credits)

The doctoral student may earn 3 credits for presenting their ongoing research orally and in writing, and for contributing to scholarly discussion within a relevant academic seminar series.

Conference (3 credits)

The doctoral student may earn 3 credits for giving an oral or poster presentation at a relevant academic conference. Credits for a conference course can only be awarded once.