Evaluation Report Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11

Recommendations:
1.  Develop funding programmes that support fundamental methodology-oriented 
research.
2.  Develop funding programmes for supporting industry-related research with a 
longer time frame.
3.  Evaluate the national strategy and division of labour between the research units 
working on wood- and pulp-related research.
2.6  PhD training
In general, PhD completion times in the evaluated units are too long, being on 
average 5–6 years, with an age of graduation of approximately 32–33 years. Partly, this 
seems to be due to a historically rather large teaching obligation for PhD students, as 
well as to the fact that the students need to work also outside the university in order 

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to provide the necessary income for their daily subsistence. The percentage of 
students that leave their PhD studies prior to graduation also seems too high, possibly 
due to a lack of funding, arising partly from too long PhD studies and partly from the 
fact that research project funding periods do not match the time needed for study 
completion. It is unfortunate that the amount of teaching PhD students need to do 
depends on the funding source. The panel recommends that all PhD students be given 
an equal, but limited, teaching obligation, possibly financed as an additional 
contribution on top of the research grant (without increasing the total time of the 
PhD studies significantly).
The panel is of the opinion that the level of supervision of PhD students has been 
too low. In recent years, some units have been able to reduce the average PhD 
completion time to four years by closely following up the scientific progress of the 
students. The many different graduate schools have led to an increased awareness of 
scientific supervision and the time needed to complete the PhD studies.
More attention needs to be paid to PhD training, and it should be a clearly 
expressed goal that a PhD degree should be obtained in four years of study, including 
a limited amount of teaching, and that the students should graduate at or before the 
age of 30 (assuming that they have otherwise had a normal study progression). It is 
important that the different units recognise the importance of and implement regular 
supervision of PhD students. The graduate schools are an important means of 
ensuring high-quality and good progression, in addition to leading to increased 
national research collaboration. The graduate school system should therefore be 
continued and strengthened. Research units not participating in national graduate 
schools should consider establishing local graduate schools.
There is a need to increase interaction and awareness regarding the quality and 
relevance of PhD training programmes. This includes systematic follow-up of PhD 
graduates in terms of their employment to ensure that the graduate training 
programme meets the needs of both society and academia. It is also important to 
follow up PhD students who do not complete their studies in order to identify 
bottlenecks in the PhD training.
PhD students should be encouraged to visit international research groups during 
their PhD studies. This is particularly important for PhD students not participating in 
national graduate schools, where national mobility is a central element. In general, the 
panel believes that the national graduate schools should encourage both increased 
international mobility and mobility between the participating research units.