KUF goes west (but not that far)

Why benchmarking?

Doctoral education is at the heart of our academic future. Measuring ourselves against leading universities is not about copying, but about understanding how we can become even better. UCL is ranked among the world's top 10 most prominent environments for doctoral education in both medicine and pharmacy. The visit will be an opportunity to see how clear structures and well-developed support for doctoral students create conditions for quality and well-being. It is a reminder that excellence does not happen by itself – it requires systematic work and the courage to change.

What do we hope to learn?

We have much to be proud of in Uppsala, not least our strong clinical research, many excellent preclinical research environments and Sweden's only world-ranked pharmaceutical faculty. But benchmarking allows us to identify areas where we can improve even further.

Course offerings, supervisor support and time for research are issues we are already working on, and we want to see how others solve these challenges. Our challenge is to focus more on the quality of our theses than on the quantity. At UCL, this is a strong tradition, and they do not work with compilation theses but focus largely on quality in doctoral education. Within the Research Training Committee (KUF), we want to work towards fewer but stronger articles in our theses and hope to learn how UCL works with these quality objectives.

Moving forward together

The trip to London is just the beginning. The next step will be to translate the lessons learned into concrete improvements – and here we need your input. How can we create even better conditions for our doctoral students? What ideas do you have for improving quality and strengthening support?

Some of this was included in the self-assessment you took part in, but there are certainly more ideas and concrete suggestions. Get in touch. Together, we can ensure that doctoral education at Medfarm not only keeps pace with the best but continues to set the standard.

Wishing you an inspiring end to the year and a great start to the super election year at Uppsala University.

Peter Stålberg, Vice-Dean for Research Training