What is the Doctoral School?
The doctoral candidates are registered to the university through a Doctoral School (DS). For those in life and medical science, it is the ED SVS 62. In fact, each supervisor is attached to a DS and the doctoral candidates are assigned to the DS of their supervisor.
The main missions of a DS are:
- to monitor the registration to the university and the application to the PhD defense according to the criteria defined by the DS;
- to organize the doctoral training, e.g. the supervision and the training that the candidates can follow;
- to deliver doctoral contracts according to the results of a competitive exam;
- to inform the doctoral candidates and animate the community with scientific events (the symposium).
Importantly, the second point means that the university, represented by the DS, is responsible for the lack of supervision from the supervisor. In general, the university will have the last word in case of conflicts with the DS.
The Director is the head of the DS who, to put it simply, allows the applications and requests from the doctoral candidates and is the first to contact in case of significant conflits.
What is the Council of the Doctoral School?
About every 3 months, the Council of the Doctoral School mainly deliberates about the following points:
- defining the criteria and the rules of the DS;
- organizing the competitive exam of the DS;
- suggesting trainings;
- ruling on the internal issues, such as changing the supervisors in case of conflicts supervisors/doctoral candidates.
The Council is made of 26 members, whose 12 lab representatives, 5 PhD representatives (“PhD team”) and 5 external members from the private sector, with their supply representatives. A mandate is 4 years, but the PhD representatives are renewed almost every year because of their turn-over.
What is the point of PhD representatives?
Therefore, the PhD team is in a minority in the Council, as the interests of the doctoral candidates are often antagonist to the interests of the supervisors and institutes. Yet, even if the system does not allow to properly defend the 700 doctoral candidates of the DS, doing nothing is not an option either. For example, the PhD team can act by:
- making the voice of doctoral candidates heard (suggesting proposals, giving contradictory point of views…);
- supporting the doctoral candidates calling for help;
- informing the community about the local issues and decisions from the Council.
The PhD team has regular meetings to prepare the Council meetings and discuss about the current issues. It has a mailing list, a drive and a contact address (phd.ed62@gmail.com). If you are interested in joining the team, even if there is no election, please contact it to be added to the discussions.
Also, if you need support or give an anonymous testimony, you can use the contact address or the form.
The team
- GUINDO Cheik – 1A – MEPHI
- MEMOLI Victoria – 2A – SESSTIM
- ROLLAND Clara – 2A – MEPHI
- SIMONNET Louise – 2A – CIML
- WERNERT Florian – 2A – INP
- (supply) ARRINDELL Jeffrey – 1A – MEPHI
- (supply) KUSCH Lionel – 3A – INS
- (supply) MICHEL Moïse – 2A – MEPHI
Sources: