Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

The Official Newsletter ofThe European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers

For more information on Eurodoc visit www.eurodoc.net or make an inquiry at board@eurodoc.net.

Dear Readers,

we are pleased to present you with Eurodoc’s October newsletter, aimedat informing Eurodoc members and other interested parties about recentactivities by the Eurodoc community.

The last period was marked by the election of a new board whichlegally took office in June 2015. The board has set its goals and prioritiesfor the year 2015–2016: Eurodoc will pursue the goal of ensuring the recog-nition of the value and the purpose of the doctorate, will continue theactivities for the second Eurodoc Survey, and its support for collaborationsbetween its national members. Furthermore, actions to increase aware-ness of why the activities of doctoral candidates and junior researchersqualify as professional activities will be continued, contributing to a betterrecognition through adequate working conditions.

Following the triannual release schedule, you can expect the new issuein February/March. Until then, keep us informed, and think of Eurodoc!

Edited by the Board of:

The European Council ofDoctoral Candidates and

Junior Researchers

Rue d’Egmont 11, 1000Bruxelles, Belgium

This Newsletter was producedusing LATEX.

All rights reserved by theirrespective owners.

In This Issue. . .

• Eurodoc board 2015–2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2• Increased funding and funded years for the Hungarian Doctoral candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2• Eurodoc Annual Conference and General Meeting 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3• Survey analysis of the state of doctoral training in Serbia — the views of PhD candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3• Announcing the EurodocWiki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4• Open Access and Early Stage Researchers: Challenges and opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4• The Challenges and Perspectives for Junior Researchers in Ukraine in 2014/2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5• Open call: Eurodoc secretariat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7• Bid to organise the Eurodoc Annual Conference and General Meeting 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8• Representing Eurodoc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8• Survey results of over 1200 young researchers in Croatia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9• The 16th Eurodoc Annual Conference and General Assembly in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . . . . . . . 10• The 1st national meeting of PhD candidates in the Czech Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Contribute to the newsletter and promote your activities!

The Eurodoc Newsletter editorial board welcomes any contribution from our member associations andfrom partner associations or external organizations. We especially encourage our members to send us shortreports on events organized by their associations or any national news that may be interesting to others.

If you are organizing an event or taking part in discussion/actions concerning PhD candidates andjunior researchers in your country, please write a story about it and get the whole Eurodoc communityfamiliar with your activities!

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Eurodoc board 2015–2016

You are welcome to contact the whole board at board@eurodoc.net.

President Margaux Kersschot Belgium president@eurodoc.netVice-president Carole Chapin France vicepresident@eurodoc.netTreasurer Clemens Nyffeler Switzerland treasurer@eurodoc.netSecretary Miia Ijäs Finland secretary@eurodoc.netMember Marcell Gáspár Hungary board@eurodoc.netMember Sanjin Marion Croatia board@eurodoc.netMember Ewelina Pabjanczyk-Wlazło Poland board@eurodoc.net

Eurodoc administration 2015–2016

Secretariat-Coordinator: Claudia Dobrinski

Working group coordinators

Gender equality: Jonas Teuwen, Ludovic Garattini Interdiscinplinarity: Giedrius GeceviciusMobility: Kinga Maslon Open Access: Ivo NetoFinance: Fabian Faller Governance: Wolfgang Müller

Increased funding and funded years for the Hungarian Doctoral candidates

Marcell Gáspár, DOSZ.

After more than 20 years, thePhD/DLA programs are being re-formed in the Hungarian higher ed-ucation system. The Associationof Hungarian PhD and DLA candi-dates (DOSZ) has prepared a com-prehensive proposal document, pos-itively supported by the State Sec-retary for Higher Education, includ-ing the noticed problems with work-able solutions related to the effec-tiveness of the ongoing PhD/DLAprograms. In the present 3-year sys-tem, only 25% of doctoral candidates

reach the level of PhD or DLA de-gree, and the required necessary av-erage time is more than 7 years forthem. As reasons for prolonged grad-uation, the lack of competitive fund-ing and the overoccupation of super-visors and doctoral candidates aregenerally mentioned. Due to the lowlevel of funding, doctoral candidatesoften need to take a part-time jobbesides their PhD/DLA training andthis steals their time from research.

In the new system, the PhD/DLAprograms would have a 2+2 yearstructure. The earnings of doctoralcandidates would be increased by50% in the first two years, and if theysuccessfully pass the comprehensiveexam at the end of the secondyear, they could get another two-yearfunding with a double salary com-pared to the present system. Withinthe comprehensive exam their knowl-edge in their selected research fieldand their advancement in the doc-

toral research, including their pub-lication activity would be evaluated.Additionally, those who successfullydefend their dissertation would berewarded with a bonus financial sup-port. Social security issues (e.g. pen-sion) are also planned to be solvedwithin the reforms, and the docu-ment also extends to the better qual-ity assurance of PhD programs. Theproposals have been finalized in ac-cordance with the professional or-ganizations concerned in doctoralprograms e.g. Ministry of Hu-man Capacities, Hungarian Accred-itation Committee, Hungarian Doc-toral Council, Rectors’ Conference,Hungarian Academy for Sciences,and National Council of StudentResearch Societies. The plannedreforms should get to the Govern-ment’s table by October 10, 2015.

Marcell Gáspár

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Eurodoc Annual Conference and General Meeting 2015

Eurodoc delegates and administration. Conference opening ceremony.

The 2015 Eurodoc Annual Conference took place inthe city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between April 27thand 28th and was co-organised by the Romanian Societyof Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Rodoc).The conference "Empowering Young Researchers in Eu-rope: Engagement and Participation" brought togetherrepresentatives from NGOs across Europe to discusswhat they are doing to support early stage researchers.Invited external speakers and Eurodoc members pre-sented how they are dealing with the issues that affectthem, and the projects they are working on. The con-ference provided an opportunity for sharing ideas andexchanging good practice.

The conference was followed by the Annual General

Meeting during which Eurodoc’s projects, strategic aimsand goals for the upcoming year were discussed. A newboard was elected, and legally took over on June 1, 2015.The names and contact details of the new board mem-bers are published in this newsletter. We encourage ourmembers to stay active and in contact with the Eurodocboard and secretariat throughout the year, until the nextconference and AGM take place in Luxembourg, April2016.

Once again we wish to thank the local organizingcommittee Rodoc for the excellent work they did inorganizing the event!

Eurodoc board

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Survey analysis of the state of doctoral training in Serbia — the views of PhDcandidates

A survey on the state of doctoral programmes inthe Republic of Serbia in 2014 was conducted by theAssociation of PhD Candidates and Young Researchersof Serbia (Doktoranti Srbije). Doktoranti Srbije is a na-tional association of PhD candidates from both state andprivate universities in Serbia. As a national organizationrepresenting all PhD candidates and young researchersDoktoranti Srbije became member of Eurodoc in 2011.During the Eurodoc AGM in Vilnius, Lithuania. Theassociation maintains contact with more than 1,200 doc-toral candidates from almost every university in Serbiathat has PhD programmes. The largest number of con-tacts, which can be seen through surveys conductedsince 2010, come from the three largest state universi-ties, which also have the largest number of accreditedplaces in doctoral studies: the University of Belgrade,University of Novi Sad, and the University of Nis.

The first survey on the state of doctoral studies inSerbia was launched in 2010 as our response to, andan attempt to draw attention to, the problems that PhDcandidates are facing, especially those who are studyingunder the so-called new Bologna PhD programs. Thesurvey had a very good response rate right from the start:in 2010 we surveyed 335 doctoral candidates, in 2011 567doctoral candidates, 625 doctoral candidates in 2012/13,and in 2014 we surveyed 447 doctoral candidates. It isimportant to mention that in 2011 and 2012/13 we hadsupport from the Ministry of Education, Science andTechnological Development, who forwarded our surveyto all doctoral candidates receiving state stipends fromthe Ministry. It is thus clear that our survey reached thebest doctoral candidates at all universities in Serbia andthat the results would certainly be more alarming witha larger sample.

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Presentation of the Survey.

The results of the survey conducted by DoktorantiSrbije can be found on the website of the organiza-tion, www.doktoranti.org.rs or directly using this link.Through these survey results it is possible to see howsome questions have been added and some have evolvedover time. The first survey conducted in 2010 was mod-elled on a survey conducted by the University of Zagrebin 2007 and 2008 for their internal needs. We owe spe-cial gratitude to the former vice rector of the Universityof Zagreb and present chairperson of EUA-CDE prof.dr. Melita Kovacevic.

Igor Salak, Slobodan Radicev

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Announcing the new EurodocWiki

The Eurodoc administration wouldlike to announce the opening of the newofficial Eurodoc Wiki. The aim is for thewiki to foster the day to day workingsof the Eurodoc administration and work-ing groups, and offer a centralized place

where all Eurodoc members can find use-ful information.

If you are a member and would like touse the Eurodoc Wiki, feel free to regis-ter at the web site. An administrator willconfirm your account within 72 hours.

Open Access and Early Stage Researchers:Challenges and opportunities

Eurodoc and Foster are orga-nizing a Webinar about Open Ac-cess and the opportunities raisedfor early stage researches in a moreopen educational environment.

The event is taking place on 6November, at 11.00h CET, and isfree and open to everybody.

If you are curious about Open

Access and want to know the bestopportunities for your research andfuture career, join us in this webinar.You can also start posting doubtsor questions on social media, usingthe following hashtags: #OpenByDe-fault and #OpenSci4Doc

For more informations and thedetailed program, please click here.To learn more about FOSTER andtheir activities regarding Open Ac-cess, Open Data, Open Educationand Open Science, please visit thislink.

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The Open AccessButton

The Open Access Button is abrowser bookmarklet whichregisters when people hit a

paywall to an academic articleand cannot access it. To find

more about it, visitwww.openaccessbutton.org:

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

The Challenges and Perspectives for Junior Researchers in Ukraine in2014/2015

Education and science reforms are considered as themost successful and Europe-oriented transformationsin modern Ukraine, even in complicated political andeconomic conditions. Law on Higher Education wadadopted last year, which aimed at changing academicreality and operational framework of higher education,and to improve academic career conditions as well. Pack-ages of legal acts to implement the law and new Lawon Scientific and Research Activities are being draftedand widely discussed on the different levels and in differ-ent communities of academic stakeholders, and amongyoung researchers as well.

Iryna Degtyarova presenting young scientists at the Polish-Ukrainian-German Rector’s Meeting, Warsaw, 15th December2014.

The new Law on Higher Education has also broughta number of amendments for junior scientists, which arerelated to doctoral training, PhD thesis preparation andPhD degree awarding processes, changes in ScientificCouncils functioning, and conditions of the research ac-tivities in general. It also refers to some alternations inthe academic career development, making it more com-petitive and based on a quality of research results, thusmore demanding for early-stage-researchers to climb upthe professional academic career ladder. Nevertheless,no positive changes were introduced in financial guar-antees for younger academic staff, and together witheconomic difficulties, which caused currency instability,it resulted in further decrease of salary in academia dueto transfer rates from Euro to US dollars. This challeng-ing situation can affect the ongoing ageing of academicstaff and massive academic migration (international andinter-sectoral mobility, transfer to business, etc.), andcommunity engagement and academic leadership arecrucial factors to revitalize the situation and prevent

such trends.

We should say, that current period of transforma-tions within the system of higher education and in theacademic community can be characterized by openpublic dialogue between the state and groups of aca-demic stakeholders, and by development of academicleadership and public/community responsibility. Majorchanges occurred to the national association of juniorresearchers in Ukraine – the Young Scientists Council.First, it changed its legal status: it was established in2012 as an independent collegial advisory body at theState Agency on Science and Innovations of Ukraine,and was not directly connected with the main decision-makers at the Ministry, but due to systemic reforms andliquidation of this Agency, YSC was reestablished as anadvisory body for the Ministry of Education and Scienceof Ukraine. It is very important, that the members ofYSC represent different regions and types of academicinstitutions in Ukraine – higher education institutionssubordinated to the Ministry of Education and Scienceof Ukraine, branch universities which belong to stateagencies (the Ministry of Health, Ministry of InternalAffairs, Administration of the President etc.), some re-search institutions of the National Academy of Sciencesof Ukraine, as well as research and development organi-zations in companies. This approach presents the mostimportant value, which is to take into account interestsof all junior scientists. YSC is operating according to theRMU Statute (approved in 2012, reapproved in 2015) andYSC bodies are: the Chairman, the 1st Vice-Chairman,2nd Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Board Members and

At the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, YSCBoard Meeting with the Maksym Stricha, Vice-Minister ofEducation and Science, discussing strategic priorities of YSCand cooperation with the Ministry.

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Associated Members. The Board Members come fromdifferent regions and types of institutions, which preventlobbying some personal interests while policy-makingactivities.

Now YSC in Ukraine operates according to two prior-ities, focused internally and externally: 1) to strengthenand integrate the junior researchers community in ourcountry, to protect their rights, lobby their interests andact on behalf of them; 2) to act as an important and aca-demic stakeholder with other interested groups on thenational arena of education and science policy-making,as well as internationally.

At the Ukrainian Parliament Verkhovna Rada, delegation tothe Parliamentary Hearings on the Law of Higher Education,2014.

The Chairman and delegates appointed by the YoungScientists Council have become the members of differ-ent working groups at the Ministry, in the ParliamentaryCommittee on Science and Education to work on the leg-islation amendments and documents to implement newLaw on Higher Education. Approximately 15 opinionsand proposals to legal acts were sent in 2014/2015.

One of the recent activities is preparing the articlefor the Draft Law on Science and Research Activitiesdedicated to the Council of Young Scientists as a bodyof academic self-government in the Universities, whichparticularly stands for its 3-level structure: NationalYSC, Regional YSCs and YSCs in HEIs and RIs. How-ever, this norm (as it actually was before in the actingLaw in Science) is contradictory to the Law on HigherEducation (Art.41) saying about the “Scientific associa-tion of students (cadets), doctoral students, postdoctoralresearchers/habilitation and young researchers (up to35)”, and a lot of universities are hurrying to restruc-ture the councils of young scientists into the “Scientificassociations. . . ” uniting them with students. Due tothe principles of academic autonomy, we cannot inter-fere into the internal issues of the universities, so wecontinue to work over the changes in other acts, whichenable and empower young researchers to save their

separate organizations within the academic institutions.The legislation process is ongoing, and lobbying for thisarticle is still active.

Strengthening the junior researchers academic com-munity is very challenging without systemic changesin the research funding system and higher educationinstitutions financing schemes . We strive for raising theissue of challenges and perspectives of academic careerdevelopment for young scientists in Ukraine and put itonto political agenda. The number of junior researchersis decreasing (from 40232 in 2012 to 33 304 in 2014, in2015 is still decreasing due to the annexation of Crimeanuniversities and HEIs from the war-affected region ofDonbas), not to mention the numbers of academic mi-gration abroad that is rising recently. We consider thissituation as a major challenge for national higher educa-tion and science, and what is more - as underestimatedby the central government and university authorities. Inspite of the new law, which created more favourable con-ditions for academic mobility and career developmentin Ukraine after obtaining academic degree abroad, theacademic reality is not so optimistic. One of the recentchallenges and threats for junior faculty staff was theconscription, and it took a lot of efforts from the Par-liamentary Committee to convince the Parliament andthe President to adopt the law on dismissal from themilitary service for researchers and academic teachers.And YSC played one of the key roles in the process ofpublic debates and development of documents on thisissues, as we sent a lot of statement letters and opinionto the state authorities, so we consider it also the victoryof the junior scientists community.

Once the Central Government (agency responsiblefor state awards and prizes) decided not to cancel grant-ing money for Cabinet of Ministry awards to juniorresearchers prize-holders, YSC considers it a violationthe interests of junior scientists. After number of appealsto the Parliamentary Committee, their appeals to theGovernment and Ministry, hopefully this issue will besolved shortly after adopting necessary changes to theState Budget.

One of the biggest achievements of national author-ities in education and science is that Ukraine joinedHorizon 2020 as associated partner, and now Ukrainianresearch units and scientists, junior as well, can takepart in grant applications and be one of the 3 main con-sortium partners and have more rights and possibilitiesto get funding for research, and to improve our researchfacilities, laboratories, research and development centresas well. All of the above have brought European perspec-tives of the research career development to Ukrainianscientific community.

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Democratization

Political crisis has become also an opportunity forresearchers to be more courageous with research ideas,be more open with expressing their position, be lessindifferent but more engaged and active as a part ofcivil society (new fields of activity – social and localcommunity engagement, volunteering, new partnershipsand cooperation in the field of democracy and civil soci-ety building). We experience greater patriotism amongacademic community, especially in students and junioracademic fellows (some of them, who was granted thePrize of the cabinet of Ministers, decided to give all themoney to the charity and volunteers).

Hearings in the Parliamentary Committee on Science andEducation on the new draft law "On scientific and researchactivities".

In 2015 with the support from the Ministry of Ed-ucation and Science of Ukraine, YSC has started All-Ukrainian initiative “Research project evaluator fromyoung researchers community to expertise projects sub-mitted to the state grant competition”. Its aim is tofind highly qualified junior researchers aged up to 35-40years, who have the best achievements in scientific andinternational research activities, and engage them intothe evaluation of the projects submitted by junior re-searchers for the state grant competitions (before therewere 2 experts and no representatives from junior sci-entific community). For 2 weeks 598 scientists applied,YSC select only 320 dividing them onto 23 scientificdisciplines, and sent the lists to the Ministry. It is forthe first time in Ukraine, when experts are selected viaopen competition by the peers. This innovative methodwill also be used for selecting the experts for evaluationapplications for other state research grant competitions.

National YSC’s work voluntarily and receive no remu-neration for its activities, but has relevant competencesand organizational framework to become a strong part-ner for policy makers, academic stakeholders and juniorresearchers in Ukraine, and to support them on theirway to academic career and approaching excellence inresearch and development.

Iryna Degtyarova, Yurii Krashchenko

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Open call: Want to become a member of the Eurodoc secretariat team?

Eurodoc announces an open call for the followingpositions:

1. Coordinator for Policy Research Working Group,and

2. Coordinator for Employment and Career Develop-ment Working Group

A Working Group coordinator coordinates the workthat a WG jointly decides to get into. In addition, thecoordinator always has a support team behind him/her:the secretariat coordinator, other WG coordinators aswell as the board of Eurodoc. Eurodoc is all aboutteamwork!

If you have:

• An interest in the situation of Doctoral Candidatesand Junior Researchers,

• A will to improve this situation and some time tofind for it,

• Openness and ability to work in a group and

motivate people you are working with,• Openness and ability to work in an international

environment,• Commitment to the work in Eurodoc, and• A will to develop many skills!

Please feel free to send your application toboard@eurodoc.net. In your email, you can includethe following topics:

• Motivation for why you would like to be in thisposition and why you would like to work for Eu-rodoc,

• Possible previous experience in organizationalwork,

• Possible previous experience related to Policy Re-search or Employment and Career Developmentissues.

Eurodoc board

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Bid to organise the Eurodoc Annual Conferenceand General Meeting 2017

Dear Eurodoc members,

We hereby call for bids to or-ganise this event. Each year inspringtime, Eurodoc holds an inter-national conference for early stageresearchers. The aim of this confer-ence is to provide a framework foryoung researchers working in Europeto meet with European economicand political leaders and to engagein a fruitful discussion on the con-struction of the European Researchand Higher Education Area. It is themost important Eurodoc event of theyear and its organisation is one ofEurodoc’s biggest projects.

As mentioned above, the eventconsists of two parts; the conferenceand the general meeting. The con-ference part should have an over-all focus, on a topic of interest foryoung researchers and stakeholders.The Local Organizing Committee(LOC) will have main responsibil-ity for the conference part. Thispart will cover about 1.5 days, afterwhich the general meeting will com-mence. During the general meet-ing, Eurodoc members will decideupon Eurodoc’s path for the com-ing year through workshop sessions,discussion of overall priorities, andelection of a new board and secre-tariat. The Eurodoc board will haveresponsibility for the general meet-ing. The conference is organisedby a Local Organising Committee(LOC) in cooperation with Eurodoc,namely the Eurodoc Board. The roleof the LOC involves providing facili-ties and organisational help in prepa-ration of and throughout the confer-ence and funding. Eurodoc assistsin compiling the programme, invit-ing speakers and also funding at aEuropean level. During the organisa-

tional phase the LOC works closelywith Eurodoc by means of mailinglists set up for that purpose. Previ-ous conferences have been success-fully held in Girona, Utrecht, Athens,Strasbourg, Bologna, London, Fri-bourg, Banská Bystrica, Vienna, Vil-nius, Krakow, Lisbon, Budapest andCluj Napoca. The 2016 Conferencewill be hosted in Luxembourg.

Organising the Eurodoc confer-ence is a serious responsibility andwill require a lot of work. However,we believe it is also very challengingand rewarding! It creates extra visi-bility of your national organisation inyour country by means of inviting lo-cal policy makers and experts and es-tablishing many important contacts.At the same time, it is a valuable ex-perience for those directly involvedand gives a great chance to furtherdevelop and prove your organisa-tional skills. Please keep in mind thatthe deadline for submitting bids is 1stJanuary 2016. In your proposal youcould suggest an initial idea for theconference theme, budget and planfor funding. All bids will be eval-uated and the board will make thefinal decision by the end of January2016. The bid does not need to fixthe dates for the conference, whichcan be agreed upon later. The con-ference is generally held around theend of March/ beginning of April.

Good luck with your application!We look forward to receiving yourbid. If you have any questions, pleasedo not hesitate to get in touch withus at board@eurodoc.net. Togetherwe can make sure that the next eventis as successful as the previous ones!

Eurodoc Board

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RepresentingEurodoc

Eurodoc was officialypresent at these events:

Conference "Attract, train andkeep global talents – the cul-tural factor", Tromso, 15 Octo-ber (Carole Chapin)

SuperProfdoc meeting in Dublin,29-30 Sept. (Carole Chapin,John Peacock, Claudia Dobrin-ski)

ESU back to school reception,Brussels, 29 Sept. (MargauxKersschot)

European Universities of Tech-nology Conference, Espoo, 18-19Sept. (Miia Ijäs)

DOSZ Summer Camp in Pécs,28-30 August, face-to-faceboard meeting

UNIKE Summer School, Porto,29 June-3 July (FilomenaParada, Iryna Degtiarova)

A new start for Europe, Open-ing up to an ERA of Innovation,Brussels 22-23 June (MargauxKersschot)

General meeting Confédérationdes Jeunes Chercheurs, Nancy,13-14 June (Carole Chapin,Anis Amokrane, Emeline Les-manne)

ESAA Kick Off Event, Brussels12-13 June (Margaux Kersschot,Carole Chapin)

Inprodoc #2, Université de Lille,9 June (Carole Chapin)

MSCA Conference, Riga, 28-29 May (Wolfgang Müller, Lu-dovic Garattini)

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

Survey results of over 1200 young researchers in Croatia

During March this year the Young scientist networkof Croatia (MLAZ) conducted an online survey betweendoctoral candidates who attend or have recently at-tended (after 2010) doctoral programs at University ofZagreb. The university of Zagreb holds around 52 %of all doctoral programs in Croatia from which around1200 doctoral candidates participated in the mentionedonline survey. The survey was anonymous and couldbe completed only once by each participant. Questionscovered different fields like: doctoral programs, teachingand scientific work, social status and the perspectivefor employment in private/public sector or academia.The goal of the survey was to pinpoint (detect) weakspots in the young researcher system in Croatia andafterwards discuss them with relevant stakeholders, e.g.the Ministry of science, higher education and sports,the University rectorate and the Union of Research andHigher Education Employees of Croatia.

Round table discussion organized by Young scientist networkof Croatia and European movement Croatia NGO.

To put the current situation in perspective, we maytake a look at Croatia’s Research and Innovation perfor-mance in the EU. We notice that Croatian R&D intensityprojections for 2000–2020 show a difference in R&Dtrends and targets in respect to EU targets. This canbe correlated with the economic recession, with whichCroatia is still struggling after a six year period. Lowinvestments in science and higher education have alsocaused the University of Zagreb ranking on the Shang-hai list to drop below the 500th place since 2012. Untilthis year there have not been any reforms or attemptstowards rectifying this problem in science and highereducation.

Survey participant profile is: 62% female gender andaround 70 % participants are from 28 to 39 years old.Around 56 % of participants are employed by the uni-versity (43 %), public institutes (13 %), while others work

in public sector (18 %), government (6 %), private sector(13 %) or are unemployed (7 %). Roughly we can say thatexpenses of doctoral programs (which range from 500 to2250 euros per semester) for one third of participants iscovered by the Ministry of higher education and sports,for the second third is paid by the employer, while therest of participants individually pays the expenses. Toput this into perspective, the average wage in Croatia is750 euro, very similar (or slightly higher) than the wageof PhD assistant in Croatia. We also examined the atti-tude of participants on their satisfaction with doctoralprograms was examined through following questions:Rate your satisfaction the general quality of doctoralprogram, the applicability of the knowledge acquiredat the doctoral programs for scientific work / teachingactivities / entrepreneurial activity. They could rate theirsatisfaction on mentioned questions from extremely un-satisfactory (1) to extremely satisfactory (5). Roughly50 % of participants are satisfied with the general qual-ity of their doctoral program and the applicability ofthe knowledge acquired at the doctoral programs forscientific work and teaching activities. Only 19 % of par-ticipants are satisfied with applicability of the knowledgeacquired at the doctoral programs for entrepreneurialactivity. Around 40 % of participants are satisfied withaccessibility to scientific journals (online journal bases)in Croatia.

Guests at the round table: the Vice Minister for Science, Ed-ucation and Sports of Croatia;the president of the Union ofresearch and HEI staff; and the vice-rector for research of theUniversity of Zagreb.

Involvement of doctoral candidates in teaching at aninstitution of higher education was also investigated andfor 38 % participants teaching is a part of their job, 9% do it as part-time and 6 % do it voluntarily. Surveyresults indicate that most of participants work over theirmaximum norms (according to the last regulations be-cause currently there is no signed agreement between

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Newsletter Issue #18 October 2015

union and Ministry of science, higher education andsports) and only 18 % of them are paid for the overtimework done. Norms are defined as 150 (225) teachinghours per semester for doctoral candidates (postdocs).Around 15 % percent of respondents were doing up to300 hours of teaching per semester, something that iswell above the norm for a full professor. Also a fewparticipants report teaching up to 900 hours. Individ-ual responses indicate that their faculties are forgingteaching documents to show a much lesser involvement.From the academia 27 % of participants have been doingresearch in a research facility abroad for more than onemonth, while in case of public and private sector only13 %. Most of participants (86 %) find their scientificwork creatively fulfilling and that is probably one of thereasons why 81 % of participants does scientific workin their own spare time. When asked which employ-ment career participants consider most plausible forthemselves considering current situation in Croatia 37% consider staying in academia, 16 % in public sector,13 % in private sector, 13 % going to work abroad, 8 %consider unemployment and 7 % consider opening theirown firm.

Survey results have shown that an improvement indoctoral programs is needed and currently the Nationalagency for science and higher education is working on afull reevaluation of all doctoral programs in Croatia thatwill ensure and improve quality of doctoral programs.For example, Croatia has over 127 doctoral programs for4.3 million inhabitants. The overburdening of doctoralcandidates in terms of university teaching is alarmingand that is why in the next few months more people willbe employed at universities by the Ministry of highereducation and sports. One of the things that still has tobe addressed is how to facilitate and make available in-ternational working experience for doctoral participants.We believe that the survey results and the discussionwith relevant parties at national level has speeded upchanges in our higher education despite lack of financialsupport at the national level. This is clearly evidentin the current reforms in the young researcher system,facilitated by our national association, aimed at theflexibility of employment for 1300 young researchers.

Fabio Faraguna

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The 16th Eurodoc Annual Conference and General Assembly in the GrandDuchy of Luxembourg

View on the Alzette river in Luxembourg City, downtown citypart Grund.

The training of early stage researchers has under-gone many changes over time. While it is common tosolely perform a project-related thesis some decades ago,doctoral schools have prospered in recent years and PhDcandidates are brought to further develop their transfer-able skills. LuxDoc, Luxembourg’s young researchersassociation, is hosting the 16th Eurodoc Annual Confer-ence and General Assembly between the 20th and 23rdApril 2016. As the main topic for the “Eurodoc 2016– Luxembourg”, it was decided to focus on the future

of early stage researchers’ training. Critical issues willbe discussed in a number of plenary sessions and work-shops: What should be in-/excluded in the training ofPhD candidates in the future? What are the main goalsof early stage researchers’ education? To what extentand on which scale should the training be standardized?

Luxembourg is located in the heart of Europe. Asone of the smallest European countries, Luxembourgplays nonetheless a very special role in Europe. Forinstance, Luxembourg hosts important European institu-tions (e.g. European Parliament, European Commission,Court of Justice of the European Communities). Thesmall size of Luxembourg promotes the multiculturaland multilingual education. The University of Luxem-bourg is a young university, which was founded in 2003.It is recently spotted in the Top 200 universities world-wide due to its fruitful development over the past yearsin innovative research. The 16th Eurodoc Annual Con-

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ference will allow sharing the celebration of the 10thanniversary of doctoral training in Luxembourg.

(From left to right) LuxDoc president Romain Decet andEurodoc treasurer Clemens Nyffeler in front of the new Uni-versity building in Esch-Belval

LuxDoc is currently in full preparation mode to makethis conference a big success. It is an honour and privi-lege for LuxDoc to welcome as speaker at the Eurodocconference, amongst others: Prof. Rolf Tarrach, formerpresident of the University of Luxembourg and currentpresident of the European University Association, MarcHansen, Secretary of State for Higher Education andResearch, as well as Dr. Marc Schiltz, Executive Headof the National Research Fund. Stay tuned for moredetails soon to be added on the website www.eurodoc-lux2016.org! Save the date, LuxDoc is happy to welcomeyou next year in Luxembourg.

Local organizing commitee

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The 1st national meeting of PhD candidates in the Czech Republic.

The first nationwide conference for PhD candidatesin Czech history called “DOKTORANDI 1.0” was heldon the grounds of Mendel University in Brno (September24 - 25, 2015). The event was organized by the StudentChamber of the Council of Higher Education (SK RVŠ),which is the legally based representative body of all uni-versity students in Czech Republic, as well as a memberof Eurodoc.

The main objective of the conference was to create adiscussion platform for PhD candidates and other inter-ested parts (professors, industry leaders and ministry) todefine the main problems related to PhD study in CzechRepublic. Based on the suggestions and informationgenerated at conference, the SK RVŠ wants to forge along-term position document, which it hopes will helpto eliminate the biggest problems, as well as to urge PhDcandidates to active participation in their solving.

The programme of the conference included twopanel discussions which were closely related to the con-ference topic: "The Current Role of PhD Candidatesat the University" and "Opportunities for PhD Candi-dates During Their Studies", as well as three blocks of

seminars focused on specific areas, such as “Mobilityand Internships”, “Position of Women in Science” and“Learning Opportunities in the Field of Teaching”. Sev-eral workshops were offered to participants in parallelto allow them a choice of the most preferable theme forthem.

Discussion about PhD candidates and Eurodoc’s role.

The conference has also witnessed the establishmentof The Commission for Postgraduate Education which

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will focus on PhD candidates, accreditation and fundingof research and its development. Long-term goal ofthe Commission is to improve the status of PhD pro-grammes in the Czech scientific community as well as inthe Czech society at large. One of the major problemsthat the Commission for Postgraduate Education andCreative Activities highlighted was the obligation of full-time students over the age of 26 to pay for their healthinsurance. According to the resolution of the SK RVŠthey should be exempt from those charges. Anotherwas the extremely low financial support that does notcover the cost of living and other duties, which preventsPhD candidates from completing their dissertation inthe standard timeframe, which is 3 or 4 years.

These are some of the speakers that have delivereda talk at the conference: Jan Fischer (chairman of theHigher Education Council of the Czech Republic andVice Chancellor for Strategy Economics in Prague) JanKonvalinka (Vice-Rector for scientific work of CharlesUniversity in Prague), Vladimir Sedlarík (Vice-Rectorfor Research and Development at Tomas Bata Universityin Zlín), Zdenek Stuchlík (Dean of the Faculty of Philos-ophy and Science at Silesian University in Opava) andmany others.

Panel discussion and workshops for PhD candidates.

Among the speakers featured also post-docs and rep-resentatives of industries, such as Petra Špetlíková (HRMarketing specialist at ŠKODA AUTO), and MiroslavPalicka (the co-founder of Smart Solutions, which wasawarded the most innovative company of the year 2014).

Michala Dubská (Slovak PhD Students’ Association), MartinPapež (chairman of The Commission for Postgraduate Edu-cation) and Eva Hnátková (delegate of SK RVŠ at Eurodoc),they met for the first time at Eurodoc 2015 conference inCluj-Napoca.

In relation to gender issues in science, a speechwas delivered by Katerina Cidlinská (PhD candidate atthe Department of Sociology at Charles University inPrague), who is a member of the National Contact Cen-tre - Women in Science, and a coordinator of mentoringprogramme for secondary school female students inter-ested in studying at technical universities. Slovak PhDStudents’ Association (ADS) from Slovakia, member ofEurodoc as well, were represented at the conference byMichael Dubská.

Eva Hnátková, Tereza Krepelová

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The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers

Rue d’Egmont 11, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium, board@eurodoc.net

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