SLU news

Second Call SLU Forest Damage Centre for applications for support to PhD positions

Published: 12 October 2022

The SLU Forest Damage Centre has now a second call open to enable a new group of PhD students to start during the first half of 2023. With this second call, the SLU Forest Damage Centre Research School wants to emphasize interest in engaging a wider range of external organisations.

Financial support for Ph.D. student projects

The SLU Forest Damage Centre Research School has two types of financial support for doctoral projects, with a cost-sharing model between external partners and SLU as well as between the SLU Forest Damage Centre and departments at SLU.

  1. Doctoral projects in collaboration with external partners (“external Ph.D. student projects”): the external partner contributes annually with 600 tkr, the SLU Forest Damage Centre contributes annually with 300 tkr, and the department at SLU contributes annually with 300 tkr. This results in a 50:25:25 (External: SLU FDC: SLU department) financial model.
  2. Doctoral projects with internal funding (e.g. governmental funding or funding from research grants to a department) (“internal Ph.D. student projects”): the SLU Forest Damage Centre contributes annually with 600 tkr, and the department contributes annually with 600 tkr, resulting in a 50:50 (SLU FDC: SLU department) financial model.

In this second call, the SLU Forest Damage Centre has 3 million SEK annually to support PhD students, which corresponds to for example 3 internal (3 x 600 KSEK) and 4 external (4 x 300 KSEK) PhD students.

The project applicant, who will be the main supervisor of the project, needs to be employed at SLU. Each proposed project must be approved by the head of the respective department.

Researchers that have contacts outside SLU are strongly encouraged to create joint PhD student project proposals with these and in the application include a letter of intent that state the intention to co-finance the project. The SLU Forest Damage Centre can help to identifying potential partners on request.

Topics

The SLU Forest Damage Centre Research School welcomes applications connected to any of the SLU Forest Damage Centre’s areas of interests. In this second call, we especially like to see applications in the fields that are not covered in the research school so far. We therefore encourage researchers to send in applications considering entomology, abiotic damage, socioeconomic aspects of forest damage as well as remote sensing and modelling of forest damage.

Criteria for assessment

Scientific quality

  • Research questions – relevance and clarity
  • Knowledge gaps – will the research fill identified knowledge gaps?
  • Hypotheses

Research methods

  • Possibility to reach relevant results
  • Feasibility and suitability of methods
  • Well-defined and realistic work plan
  • Ethical considerations when relevant
  • Budget congruent with project goals

Competence

  • Ability to carry out and coordinate the project
  • Competence of the research group
  • Complementation and cross-disciplinarity of the research group

Societal relevance and communication

  • Communication skills (dissemination of results to stakeholders/end users)
  • Connection to social/sectoral issues
  • Short- and/or long-term outcome
  • Relevance to stakeholder/end user needs
  • Concrete and realistic plan for communication and other output

Facts:

Call information

Call information

How to apply

Please use below template and adjust the box sizes according to the length of your text. Note that your application should not exceed the specified character limitations. The count of characters given in the different boxes includes spaces. Applications should be written in either English or Swedish. It should be submitted digitally together with a two-page CV of the applicant to applyFDC@slu.se.  

The project applicant, who will be the main supervisor of the project, needs to be employed at SLU. Each proposed project must be approved by the head of the respective department.

Application templates

Application template "intern finansiering"

Application template "extern finansiering"

Deadline

The deadline for this call is the 15th of January 2023.

Questions?

For question, please contact the administrative coordinator of the SLU Forest Damage Centre, katja.fedrowitz@slu.se or the deputy director Åke Olson (ake.olson@slu.se).

About the SLU Forest Damage Centre (FDC) Research School

The SLU Forest Damage Centre Research School is organized in cooperation with public authorities, non-governmental organisations, research institutes and private companies. The research school will cover a wide range of subject areas, including both natural and social science aspects of biotic and abiotic damage across forest ecosystems relevant for Sweden. It will address both basic and applied research questions to better understand ecological and economical risks of forest damage, as well as their management and mitigation. Doctoral projects within the research school should consider climate change, sustainability, and biodiversity.

Related pages:

Contact

SLU Forest Damage Centre

Director: Jonas Rönnberg
jonas.ronnberg@slu.se; +46 40 41 51 79 eller +46 706 72 76 43

Deputy director: Wiebke Neumann Sivertsson
wiebke.neumann@slu.se; +46 90 78 68 117 eller +46 706 34 90 51

Deputy director and responsible for the research school: Åke Olson
ake.olson@slu.se; +46 18 67 18 76

Communications officer: Theres Svensson
theres Svensson@slu.se; +46 90 78 68 228, +46 765 46 05 96

Administrative coordinator: Katja Fedrowitz
katja.fedrowitz@slu.se; +46 18 67 21 96