UEF offers a lot of training, courses and guidance to support doctoral researchers in their work (e.g. information retrieval, data protection and management, statistics, writing, publishing).
Make sure that
- your supervisee knows
- what good scientific practice and its violations mean in practice
- what are her/his GDPR compliant responsibilities related to processing of personal data (if applicable)
- what research permits s/he needs to perform the research (if applicable)
- you have agreed on
- the authorship of the scientific articles to be included in the dissertation (if applicable)
- usage rights of the co-produced data (see Agreements between researchers by Finnish Social Science Data Archive)
- storing, archiving, further use, and ownership of the research data
Your supervisee will receive guidance on research ethics in Kamu and on the course Research ethics.
Doctoral researchers are more than twice likely to develop a common psychiatric disorder compared to other comparison groups in higher education (Levecque et al. 2017). The major stress factors are uncertainty of career prospects as well as difficulty to maintain a work–life balance (Nature, 2019). Overly stressed doctoral researcher is a risk: indisposition leads to procrastination, and later on to burn out or drop out.
Therefore:
- Inquire after your supervisee regularly (also in informal setting e.g. coffee breaks)
- Be interested, listen, encourage, inspire. Do not press.
- Encourage in maintaining balance between work and leisure. A well-being doctoral researcher is an efficient doctoral researcher. Learn more about university sport services.
- Discuss your supervisee’s career prospects. If necessary, guide to the career courses provided by the Doctoral School.
- Enhance networking with other doctoral researchers (e.g. UEF Doctoral Student Association) or finding other social networks.
See also:
- Successful supervision
- Wellbeing of doctoral researchers
Violations against the responsible conduct of research include research misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, misappropriation) and disregard for the responsible conduct of research (e.g. denigrating the role of other researchers in publications, manipulating authorship, self-plagiarism, or careless reporting of research results).
If there is reason to suspect a violation of the responsible conduct of research, the allegations of research misconduct must be investigated in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK). The investigation is a three-tier process: 1) a written notification, 2) a preliminary investigation and 3) an actual investigation. In the University of Eastern Finland, any allegations of misconduct are reported to the Rector, who is responsible for decision-making throughout the process.
If you need assistance or guidance, you can contact the UEF's research ethics advisers (in Heimo, requires UEF login).
Conflict situations include, for example, personality clashes, issues related to tasks or management, or issues related to supervision. For solving those, so called low threshold principle is primarily applied:
- Supervisee (or supervisor) will contact the coordinator of the doctoral programme to book a meeting/an appointment.
- The situation will be explored in a confidential discussion with the head and the coordinator (or other suitable person) of the doctoral programme
- Who are the parties to the conflict?
- How should the situation change in order for the conflict to be resolved?
- The actions to attempt to resolve the situations will be defined.
- A memo will be written.
- A time/An appointment to follow up on the situation will be agreed on.
If the conflict is not resolved, it will be transferred to the head of the department / the dean.
Other working community situations include, for example, inappropriate feedback, suspected indoor air quality problem, or sexual harassment.
UEF Compasses (in Heimo, requires UEF login) have been created to provide guidelines for these situations.