Guidelines for docenture at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy

Background

A person who has completed a doctoral degree is eligible to apply for admission to a docenture at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy at Uppsala University. A docenture is a non-salaried appointment awarded in recognition of high scholarly achievement. It is the approximate Swedish equivalent to the French or German Habilitation, or the English degree of DLitt, and also serves as qualification for later promotion to professor. Docents are not employed by the university, but are an integral part of the Faculty’s teaching staff, who are tasked with conducting research and teaching. The holder of a docentur must therefore have a close affiliation with the Disciplinary Domain and possess both scholarly and pedagogic competence.

Admission requirements to a docenture

Affiliation and benefit

Only individuals who can make a useful contribution to education and research in the Disciplinary Domain will be admitted to a docenture. Docentures carry both rights and obligations. Docents are entitled to conduct research related to the Disciplinary Domain, which is in turn entitled to require the docent’s participation in teaching, supervision, examining committees, as a subject specialist, as a faculty reviewer at public defences, and in working groups on research and education. Qualified applicants may be admitted if it is deemed that the docentur would benefit the Faculty’s activities.

Admittance is not limited in time.

Competence in subject

A docent may be admitted in the subject areas in which a first-, second- or third cycle programme is offered, or in subjects in which the Disciplinary Domain has professorships. For a physician’s docenture in clinical subjects at the Faculty of Medicine, core specialist training must have been completed. In other cases, the docenture is given a different title, such as “experimentel” or with the addition of the word “forskning”. For other categories of health care professionals can subjects such as “fysioterapi, arbetsterapi, klinisk nutrition, medicinsk psykologi etc” be used. In addition to what is required for the doctoral degree, the docent must also have deepened and broadened their competency in the subject. Applicants to docenturs should have been affiliated with a scholarly institution in the relevant subject area for at least two years following the public defence of the applicant’s doctoral thesis.

Applicants whose primary experience comes from research institutions in the private sector or government supervisory bodies may apply for an “industrial” docenture. Pedagogical qualifications for industrial docentures include courses and experience in staff management, project management and supervision of a scale equivalent to the requirements otherwise provided in these guidelines.

Research expertise and independence

The research expertise/production must be documented in the form of at least 15 published/accepted original scientific publications, including meta-analyses (not categorized by the journal as reviews). More than half of the publications should be published after the date of PhD dissertation. Original scientific publications are articles published or accepted for publication in international journals with peer-review systems and with reported Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (previously Thomson Reuters) impact factor.

If a journal’s impact factor is not reported by Clarivate Journal Citation Reports, Scimago

Journal and Country Rank can be provided that its impact factor is >1. In such a case,

“SJR impact factor” must be indicated prior to the actual SJR impact value in the “bibliometrics” table. SJR ≤ 1 will not be accepted. Papers not accepted for publication/published should not be listed.

Exceptions to this guideline may be made if the scientific works are of extraordinary quality and the applicant has made a significant contribution to the publication (demonstrated by, for example, position of name in list of authors or number of authors).

Non-peer-reviewed articles in journal supplements are not counted as original scientific publications, nor are proceedings, case reports, study protocols, reviews and other survey articles, letters to editors, etc.

To demonstrate scholarly independence, the applicant must have contributed to at least three of the reported scientific publications as the first or last author (“leading author”), and without co-authorship with any of the applicant’s supervisors. These publications must have been published/accepted after the date of PhD dissertation.

When there is shared or equal contribution as “leading author” on a publication, additional papers to certify independence may be requested, since an “equal contribution” depreciates the total scientific merit. If the “leading author” is not a communicating author, additional information verifying the independence as leading author is required, such as relevant information in “Author´s Contributions” on the role of the applicant, the applicant being supervisor/co-supervisor of first-author PhD student, the applicant being post-doc/research fellow in a senior scientist’s group, the applicant has independent support for the study etc.

In addition to the mandatory publication requirements, independence can be documented by e.g. direct government funding for research acquired in competition with the applicant as the main applicant, referee assignments, research responsibilities as a supervisor, postdoc appointment in another research environment, etc.

Pedagogic qualifications

Teaching experience

Pedagogic qualifications must primarily have been acquired within the subject area.

The applicant must have completed at least 120 teaching hours, the majority (> 60 hours) of which must have taken place within the last six years. The applicant must have actively participated in teaching on various levels (first-, second- or third-cycle) or specialist training. Teaching qualifications may include lectures, seminars, demonstrations, laboratory supervision, or supervision in problem-based learning. No more than half of the teaching hours may be from laboratory supervision. Supervision of individual project work is counted as 1 hour per week. Project supervision may not constitute more than 40 hours of the total teaching hours.

The applicant may count as a teaching qualification specially organised (scheduled) bedside teaching (teaching that takes place in the presence of the patient). However, supervision of the applicant’s own doctoral students, or clinical supervision (e.g. of general or specialist resident physicians or doctor/nursing students in connection with routine clinical work) may not be counted as pedagogical hours. Specify type of teaching and actual teaching time in the attached “Annex to application for docenture, teaching experience”.

Courses

The requirement for completed teaching courses is 7.5 credits/5 weeks, including academic teacher training and supervision. Pedagogical courses, such as courses in leadership equivalent to a maximum of one week, may also be accepted.

If trial lecture was not included in the completed pedagogical course, the trial lecture must be completed separately. A pedagogically qualified person must certify that an approved trial lecture has been completed (arranged for by the department before applying for the docenture).

“Högskolepedagogisk grundkurs” and other relevant courses at Uppsala University: Courses

Application process for a docenture

Application

Applications are to be submitted using the form “Docenture Application”:

1. Curriculum vitae with substantiated list of qualifications and employment, which must specify where the applicant works and the applicant’s affiliation with the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy.
2. A list of all published original scientific publications and other papers that the applicant wishes to submit.
   The authors must be listed in the same order as in the paper/publication. For publications, complete reference information must be provided. Meta-analyses providing new knowledge and which were published in refereed journals should be counted as original work (see PRISMA statement (prisma-statement.org) for more information on meta-analyses).
   Prepare the list of publications in the following order, with the following headings:
   1. Thesis (summary of thesis or monograph)
   2. Papers included in the thesis (these may not be included under c or d)
   3. Published and accepted original scientific publications in refereed journals.
   4. Published or accepted review articles, monographs, book chapters
3. Declaration of independent work.
   Describe how you are an independent researcher and, if your previous supervisor has co-authored works with you after your public defence, describe her/his function and reason for co-authorship (no more than one-half of an A4 page).
4. The number of publications must match the number of publications specified under item 2 above.
5. Research plan. Provide your own account (no more than two A4 pages) of previous scholarly activities, current activities and a description of planned future activities. Emphasis should be placed on future activities, how you have begun an independent line of research and how you plan for it to continue.
6. An account of your own research grants.
7. An account of referee assignments in international journals (specify scope).
8. An account of supervision.
9. An account of previous pedagogical activities, preferably structured as a pedagogical qualifications portfolio.
   Please summarise your pedagogical experience under the following headings:
   1. Administrative pedagogical experience
   2. Formal pedagogical training – Participation in pedagogical development
   3. Production of study resources/materials
   4. An opinion on the applicant’s approach to teaching and learning aimed at developing teaching in the docenture subject (no more than one-half of an A4 page)
10. To facilitate the assessment of teaching qualifications, the applicant must fill in the Excel sheet entitled “Annex to application for docenture, teaching experience”.
    Where appropriate, the pedagogical activities should be documented by e.g. certificates from directors of studies, course certificates, etc.

The application form contains a list of annexes which must be enclosed with the application.

Submit the application and annexes by uploading them to Uppsala University’s erecruitment system. Send an email to the secretary of the Docent Committee to request a link.

Processing of the application

The Docent Committee is tasked with ensuring that the admission requirements have been met and for approving or rejecting the application on the basis of this. The most common reasons for a docenture application to be rejected are insufficient research production, unclear research independence, or insufficient or insufficiently documented pedagogical qualifications.

If the application is rejected, all documents will be returned to the applicant.

Alternatively, the application may be set aside for supplementation within six months. If supplementary qualification is not provided within this time, the application will be returned to the applicant.

The Docent Committee’s final decision on the applicant’s request for a docenture will be stated in the records kept at the Committee’s meetings. These records shall contain information on the applicant’s research expertise, teaching ability and education, as well as the benefit to research and education that would be provided by the applicant’s admission to a docenture. The Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy Board decides whether the applicant will be admitted as a docent in the specified subject area.

Statements from head of department/professor/docent in the relevant subject area without a conflict of interest must contain the following:

1. An assessment of the applicant’s independence in scholarly work after her/his public defence.
2. An assessment of the applicant’s competence in the subject.
3. An assessment of the applicant’s affiliation with the Faculty/higher education institution.
4. An account of the applicant’s pedagogical activities and an assessment of her/his teaching ability.
5. The benefit to research and teaching in the subject at the Faculty that would be provided if the applicant is admitted as a docent. The docenture’s importance for research and education should be clearly stated in the statement even when the applicant is working outside the university, e.g. in a hospital or in the pharmaceutical industry. In the latter case, the statement should include information on the reason for the application and a specification of the nature and scope of future work in the Faculty of Medicine or Faculty of Pharmacy.
6. Proposal of external expert who has been asked and can accept the assignment. This external expert must have at least the qualifications required for appointment as a docent and must be impartial.
   If the applicant clearly meets the established requirements, the assessment is instead made by the Docent Committee and the internal professor/docent in the relevant subject.

The Head of Department’s statement must always be enclosed with the application. If the head of department is not impartial and/or has delegated the task of providing a statement as per above, she/he must provide a signature to verify acceptance of the statement.

A statement from the applicant’s employer must be attached, certifying that the employer is aware of the application and supports it. This applies to applicants employed outside the relevant department at Uppsala University. It must be stated in the letter from the employer that she/he is in agreement with the head of department/professor/docent (see above).

Report card with proposal for distribution of points (signed by relevant heads of department)

Rules concerning the distribution of points upon admission of a docent Pursuant to

Section 5 of the 19 January 2016 decision of the University Medical Care Board (Universitetsjukvårdsnämnden) concerning “Keying in the ALF system”, the following applies for activity relevant to the report card: “Activity for researchers is keyed in the ALF system if the person concerned has at least a 30% employment within the county council/hospital. For research teams, the head of the research team must have at least a 30% employment with the county council/hospital. If such is the case, all activity is keyed to all of the co-workers in the research team, regardless of whether the co-worker is employed within the county council/hospital or not.”

If identified activity pursuant to the above guideline is met, full points will be allocated. If identified activity pursuant to the above guideline is met and only comes from one department, full points will be allocated to this department. If identified activity pursuant to the above guideline is met and comes from multiple departments, the relevant heads of departments propose points are allocated ¾, ½ or ¼. Attach a certified copy of the docent certificate