A one-day workshop, 16 fully financed PhD scholarships and up to 32 highly motivated candidates. That is the recipe for a whole new approach to PhD recruitment that the Graduate School at Health will be testing over the next two years.

2018.10.31 | Simon Byrial Fischel

The Graduate School of Health is testing out a whole new approach to PhD recruitment in a two-year pilot project. Photo: Ida Jensen, AU Foto.

On 14 November 2018, the PhD programme at Health will hold its first ever Recruitment Day with the goal of attracting new and talented PhD students from Denmark and abroad to the faculty. Recruitment Day is a pilot project that is being tested at the Graduate School of Health in 2018 and 2019. One of its aims is to give the departments a better opportunity to prioritise the academic and strategic areas that they wish to strengthen.

Health's departments have therefore been given the chance to determine the projects that the 16 fully funded PhD fellowships should be affiliated with. The PhD fellowships have been advertised internationally, giving interested candidates the opportunity to apply and come into consideration for one or more of the projects.

Each of the fellowships has a principal supervisor affiliated and this person has formulated the project description. Together with the graduate school, the principal supervisors have carefully selected the two best candidates for each project. They are now all invited to the one-day workshop at which projects and candidates will be matched. During the workshop, the principal supervisors will present the 16 projects and each candidate will do a presentation on his or her professional strengths, motivation and proposed solutions to the given project.

"We hope that the opportunity of coming to the workshop in Aarhus, meeting your potential principal supervisor and receiving a thorough presentation of the project will make applying more attractive for candidates from abroad," says Damian A. Hertoft Goldberg, acting division manager at the Graduate School of Health.

"We’re very much looking forward to seeing the result of the new recruitment model. Right now, our focus is of course on the workshop day and all the logistics, because we need to facilitate 16 good project presentations and at the same time ensure that the candidates and principal supervisors have amble time to talk to one another. After the workshop is concluded we’ll have an indication of whether the model works as intended," he concludes.

At the beginning of December, the graduate school expects to be ready to offer PhD scholarships to the 16 best candidates, so they can begin their research within the following six months.

Find out more about Recruitment Day 2018.

Contact
Acting Division Manager Damian A. Hertoft Goldberg
HE Administrative Centre – HE PhD Administration
Katrinebjergvej 89 F, Building 5132 - 145
Email: damian@au.dk
Telephone: (+45) 9350 8910