Rules and rights for PhD students

Rules of procedure Doctoral Program: everything on doctoral students’ rights and duties (e.g., right to supervision, changing supervisor, when to schedule your licentiate, etc.)
Syllabus for the Microtechnology and Nanoscience Graduate School (English): requirements on credits, courses, passing grades, etc.
Allmän studieplan för forskarskolan Mikroteknologi och Nanovetenskap (Swedish)
Salary agreement (löneavtal) 2021-2024 (Swedish)
Salary agreement (löneavtal) 2024-2026 (Swedish)

Useful courses

Here is a downloadable non-comprehensive spreadsheet of courses that may be useful for MC2 PhD students to take, both at Chalmers and at other universities. It includes master’s-level and PhD-level courses, summer schools, courses that give GTS credits, both presential and online. This list has been gathered by MC2 PhD students and it is continuously being updated, so if you have suggestions on new courses or find outdated information, please let the council know!

Department duties

To calculate the corresponding department duty hours attained from the teaching activities, this spreadsheet can be utilized.

Poster printing

Besides printing a poster through Chalmers Digital Printing Service, which may take up to 2 days and over 1000kr, you can also print a poster yourself in the moment and free of charge! Here’s how:
• Go to the ACE building (samhällsbyggnad) and enter through the closest entrance to the student union building (Sven Hultins Gata 6)
• Go to the left and downstairs through Kunskapstrappan
• Straight to the end and then right, following the instructions to the Plotterrum / Skrivarrum 060
• Choose one of the plotters that is free: either SB1-0138-Plot4 or Plot3
• Go to any group room on that floor that has computers (e.g., Data 040)
• Sign in with CID and password to one of the computers
• Log into your email and retrieve your poster (you should have emailed it to you beforehand)
• Open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader and press Print (Ctrl+P)
• Select the printer you want (e.g., Plot3) and click on Properties
• Go to Paper/Quality > Document size: Custom > Custom…
• Enter the size of poster you want (A0 is width 841mm x length 1189mm), accept and print
• Go to the printer and collect your poster. It will take approximately 5 minutes to print
• Finally, use the cutters in the room to remove any white margins you may not want
• Don’t forget to log out on the computer!
You can find empty poster cases in any of the supply rooms at MC2.

Your wellbeing as a PhD student

Doktorandombudet (DOMB): get help with problems that may arise in the course of your research or employment (big or small).
Occupational health service (Pe3): get help with problems related to work (e.g., contact an ergonomist, or get psychological help — first session is for free —)
Tools to improve communication with your supervisor: manage expectations, measure your development as a researcher and draw a development plan, etc.
A beginner’s guide to Swedish Academia
Other resources

Occupational health service

Through Pe3 – Chalmers’ occupational health service – you have access to:
• Occupational physician
• Occupational health nurse
• Physiotherapist/ergonomist
• Behavioural scientist/psychologist
• Work environment engineer
If you’re experiencing problems at work and would like to talk to a professional, you can get 1 sessions for free with a behavioural scientist/psychologist. You will be offered an appointment within a week. You can contact them confidentially and no one at Chalmers needs to know. After the first initial session, if you want to continue, then your line manager needs to be notified.

Insurance

Through Chalmers, you are insured while:
• At work
• On your way from and to work
• On a business trip
• On a holiday in connection to a business trip
• On a research stay
• Working remotely
Example 1: Occupational insurance covers you if you slip, fall, get hit by an object, or if you have been subjected to threats, violence, or robbery at your workplace. In the event of an accident, you can get compensation for lost income, expenses, and in some cases pain and suffering.
Example 2: Occupational insurance covers you if you have a biking accident on your way to work. In the event of such an accident, you can get compensation for expenses and in some cases pain and suffering. However, occupational insurance does NOT cover traffic accidents if you are traveling by car or motorcycle, since those are covered by your vehicle’s insurance.
Read more here.

Wellness benefit

Every Chalmers employee, including PhD students, has the right to a wellness benefit of up to 2000 SEK per year. This grant covers expenses of activities such as sports, gym memberships, and massages, and it is managed by Epassi. If you want to use your wellness grant on a supplier affiliated with Epassi, you can either
• order what you want through the Epassi website or app. When visiting the wellness supplier, show your digital receipt.
• identify yourself when visiting the supplier and state that you want to pay with Epassi. The wellness contribution will be deducted directly at the check out.
If the wellness supplier is not affiliated with Epassi, you can send your receipt via email through Epassi’s website.

You can find more information about Epassi and the wellness grant on the Intranet page.

Medication

You can be reimbursed for prescribed medicine within Sweden, in case of illness, accidents, and work rehabilitation. The subsidy covers reimbursement of pharmaceutical drugs up to 2600 SEK (in 2023) and it is registered through Primula. Read more here.

Appraisal talk

The appraisal talk is held once per year for PhD students between the you and your manager manager and focuses on on work such as tasks, goals and results but also about for example working environment.

Here are some do’s and don’ts:
🚫 DON’T skip your appraisal talk. 👉 If you haven’t heard from your line manager by now, DO give them a nudge.
🚫 DON’T attend your appraisal talk unprepared. 👉 DO think about what you’d like to discuss in advance. If you need inspiration, there’s a template that you can find in the intranet by searching for “appraisal talk” (in the English site).
🚫 DON’T say that things are fine if they are not. 👉 DO express your discontent, if that’s the case. Remember that it is your responsibility to bring issues up when they arise, and it is theirs to do something about it.
🚫 DON’T have an appraisal talk with your someone you have a conflict of interest with, such as your supervisor or someone you don’t trust or dislike. That is a waste of time for everyone involved. 👉 DO have your appraisal talk with someone you feel like you can talk to. Not the Head of Unit? Then how about the Head of Division/Laboratory? Don’t get along with them either? How about the Head of the Graduate School (Magnus Karlsson)? Nope? Then talk to your line manager and designate someone you feel comfortable with. But absolutely DON’T skip the appraisal talk just because you don’t like the person you’ve been assigned to!

When you work, you still get paid!

All days spent on leave (sick leave, moving day, family matters, parental leave) will extend your employment. This means that all those days are paid twice: first, when you take paid leave, and then, when you work those days at the end of your PhD. Note that vacation days are not leave, and thus do not extend your employment — they are already accounted for.

Sick leave

If you get sick, you get to stay home with paid leave. Do not panic, these days are not lost! They are added to the end of your PhD, and extend your contract accordingly.

The compensation is the following:
• Day 1: you don’t get paid.
• Days 2-14: you get 80% of your usual salary.
• Days 15-onwards: you can apply for sickness benefit from the Social Insurance Office (Försäkringskassan).

The reporting procedure is the following:
• As soon as you’re sick, let your supervisor know.
• When you’re recovered, you register the days you were sick on Primula. If you’ve been sick 7 calendar days or less, you do not need a doctor’s certificate.
• If you’ve been sick for more than 7 calendar days, you need to send a copy of the doctor’s certificate to the LRS.
• If you’ve been sick for more than 14 calendar days, you need to send a copy of the doctor’s certificate to the LRS, and the original to the Social Insurance Office (Försäkringskassan). The LRS will report the sick leave to the Social Insurance Office (Försäkringskassan) and, after that, you can apply for the sickness benefit directly from the Social Insurance Office (Försäkringskassan).

Read more about sick leave on the intranet, here and here.

Sick leave and vacation

If you are sick over a weekend, you won’t get any compensation, but if you are sick the monday after the weekend, the sick leave should be registered from the day you got sick, but you will only get compensation from monday to friday.

If you get sick during your vacation, you should go on sick leave and change the dates for vacation in retrospect, to save the vacation days. Simply:
• Contact your supervisor or manager (the person who has approved vacation) and tell them that you are sick.
• Register sick leave in Primula.
• In Primula you can adjust vacation days afterwards.

Moving day

If you are moving, you can take one day of paid leave. You apply via Primula.

Doctor’s appointments

You can take time off for a doctor’s appointment, with the exception of non-emergency dental appointments. If you work part-time, doctor’s appointments should usually be arranged outside ordinary working hours.

Family matters

If a close relative has a life-threatening illness or dies, you have the right to one day of paid leave. In addition to one day leave, a maximum of two days leave is granted per reason of absence for travel outside the Gothenburg area. You can, at most, take nine days of paid leave for family matters per calendar year.The application is done via Primula.
Leave may be granted for the reasons given below, which apply only to next-of-kin (spouse, registered partner, cohabitant, child, parent, sibling, registered partner/cohabitant parents, parents-in-law, grandchild, and grandparents):
• Life-threatening illness
• Death
• Funeral
• Estate inventory or distribution of inheritance (only if the employee is a beneficiary)

Vacation

Your are entitled to different amount of vacation days depending on your age:
• 28 days of vacation: until and including the year in which you turn 29 years old
• 31 days of vacation: from and including the year in which you turn 30 years old
• 35 days of vacation: from and including the year in which you turn 40 years old

The statutory holiday is 20 days, and the employee needs to take it for over a year. You are allowed to save other vacation days, but not more than 30 days. These saved days can be taken out as vacation pay on your final salary. It is important to point out that this does not mean any cost to the project or the department, whatever the employee chooses to do with their vacation days. If you want to know more about how this works, contact the admin/finance representative at the division level. Also, if you take a vacation day and you are at work, you are not insured. If a PhD student is sick, absence should be reported as sick leave and not vacation since it can be used to extend the contract.
The vacation supplement is 0.65% of your current monthly salary per paid day of vacation. The vacation supplement is paid out with your salary in connection with, or immediately after, the vacation.

You are entitled to 20 days of vacation during the summer months of June–August. If you prefer, you can schedule your vacation at a different time of year, as long as it is suitable with the work responsibilities within Chalmers. The time of your vacation must be agreed on with your supervisor, and the needs of your work must be taken into consideration.

Read more about vacation benefits here, and about Swedish holidays here.

International staff mobility office (ISMO)

The International Staff Mobility Office (ISMO) offers Chalmers’ staff support when migrating to or from Sweden. At ISMO’s Intranet page, you can find their contact information as well as information about tax and benefits, accommodation, migration, and introduction to work and everyday life in Gothenburg and Sweden.

Travel information

Traveling with a partner

When you travel for work with a partner or a family member, and you share a room with them, you can get reimbursed up to 75% of the total cost. They don’t need to assume half the expenses! Find out more here.

Day off

Did you know that when you have long travels outside of work hours, especially on weekends, you can get a day off to recover? Of course, some consideration must be given to whether the specific day immediately after the return is a bad time to be absent (and, in that case, postpone the recovery a little), but in general, you should be granted an off day. You do not need to declare it on Primula or anywhere else, just let your supervisor and/or manager know, in the same way you do when you’re going on holidays.
Unfortunately, we can’t give you a source for this information, because this is not part of any official regulation. This is just something the MC2 PhD Student Council asked for in 2022 at the MC2 Executive Board (Ledningsgruppen) and the managers agreed to grant us.

Below are some documents and links with useful information about traveling as a Chalmers employee:

Travel insurance information
Regulations for business trips
LRS – How to fill in travel bills
LRS – Meal benefits: downloadable pptx with the meal flow chart to fill Primula Travel Bills
Primula Travel Bill – Quick reference guide
Primula Travel Bill – Tutorial: stream a 25min video showing how to fill a travel bill. Download the video for HD resolution — it’s 1GB.

Thesis review committee (TRC)

All students at MC2 must get their research and publications evaluated by the Thesis Review Committee (TRC) before they are allowed to defend their thesis. The committee looks at your entire list of publications, journal articles, conference papers etc., and decides whether you are ready to defend or if more work is needed. There is no official minimum number of publications required in order to pass the TRC, although very few students pass without at least 4 first author publications, or can show an equivalent amount of work. Multiple second or third author publications can make up for fewer first author publications.

There is sometimes a debate among students whether following the recommendations of TRC is a must or not, since there is no general Chalmers rule that requires a certain amount of publications in order to graduate. However, the department has decided that passing TRC serves as a necessary quality control of our research and is written as a requirement in the statues of our graduate school. Passing TRC is thus mandatory in order to graduate from the graduate school in Microtechnology and Nanoscience.

For detailed information about TRC, check out the TRC’s Intranet page.

After the PhD

Unemployment benefits

In order to get the most unemployment benefits after you finish your PhD, you should:
1) join A-kassa (unemployment insurance fund) at least 12 months before the end of your PhD. We recommend Akademikernas a-kassa, which costs 130 kr/month. Once unemployed, A-kassa gives you up to 80% of your last salary — but only if your last salary was at most 33000 kr/month (before taxes). Therefore, at most, A-kassa can pay you 26400 kr/month (before taxes).
2) and join a trade union at least 12 months before the end of your PhD. Most trade union memberships include an income insurance, which means that once you become unemployed, you will truly get 80% of your last salary. For instance, if you graduate in March 2025 while earning 38500 kr/month, from April 2025 you could earn 30800 kr/month (before taxes) in unemployment benefits. But note that this is only if you join both A-kassa and a trade union. Find a list of unions here.

Preparing for a new job

Did you know that after the PhD, you have access to coaching services that help you transition to your next job? You can get training for interviews, help polishing your CV, and even financial support to get special licenses. TSN will write you an email about it themselves, so just remember to answer it! And before you dismiss this information, know that they specialize in transitions between academia and industry, and that their services are highly recommended by many MC2 PhD alumni.

Alumni network

If you are or have been a PhD student at MC2, join the MC2 PhD alumni network on LinkedIn!