For new employees: Doctoral students

• General information for international staff
• Migration issues
• Employment contract
• Salary/Bank account/Tax registration
• Personal identity number (personnummer/samordningsnummer)
• Insurance matters
• Housing
• Life as a doctoral student in Sweden 
• Rights, obligations and expectations
• Introteam
• Doctoral student council
• Internationalisation
• Project PhDs

You also find other information on your doctoral studies on these links:

• Information regarding your employment
• Information about independent study courses, thesis work and seminars
• Information on compensation rules for PhD students

Before you start your employment

General information for international staff

Please read the information for new employees at Lund University (on the Lund University's Staff Pages)

Migration issues

A Department administrator will assist the newly admitted non-Swedish PhD student in the process of applying to the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket).

You find more information on the Lund University's Staff Pages

Employment contract

A formal decision on your employment as a PhD candidate will be sent to you by the Department. You do not sign a contract. 

Salary/Bank account/Tax registration 

If you have a Swedish personnummer and a Swedish bank account: you need to apply yourself for an A-skattesedel at the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) and report your bank account number to Nordea (to enable payment of your salary). A Department administrator will ask newly admitted PhD students for information on bank account and A-skattesedel (for Swedish citizens). 

For non-Swedish citizens, the Department administrator will ask for information on a bank account in the home country for the payment of the first montly salary through the bank Nordea. Once you have arrived in Lund, you need to visit the Swedish Tax Agency and apply for a personal identity number. Once you have that, you can apply for an ID-card and then apply for a Swedish bank account.

See more information on the Lund University's Staff Pages

Personal identity number (personnummer/samordningsnummer)

The Department will apply for a samordningsnummer for new PhD students who are not Swedish citizens. Once you have arrived in Lund, you need to visit the Swedish Tax Agency and apply for a personal identity number. Once you have that number, you can apply for an ID-card and then apply for a Swedish bank account. 

For more information see the Lund University's Staff Pages

Insurance matters

Here you find information on insurance matters for international staff at Lund University (on the Lund University's Staff Pages)

Housing

You need to look for housing yourself.

This link is a good place to start (on Lund University's website)

Life as a doctoral student in Sweden 

The above and many other matters are covered in a useful PhD Handbook compiled by Sweden’s United Student Unions.

Read the PhD Handbook on PhD Handbook's website

Rights, obligations and expectations 

Public employees have certain rights and obligations and there are moreover specific expectations on our doctoral students in terms of being employed as a PhD at our Department. To help you get an overview of your rights and obligations, and the expectations we have on you, we have compiled them in a document. 

Rights, obligation and expectations

Introteam

During your first semester you will be taken care of by an introduction team with which you will have regular meetings. The aims of these meetings are to introduce you to the Department, to give you practical information on being employed at the Department, to help you get in contact with other senior researchers, to give advice concerning the organization of your initial PhD studies, and offer a forum to start discussing your PhD thesis.

The Introteam consists of the Director of studies for the PhD programme and a young researcher who defended her/his PhD thesis relatively recently. You will also get the opportunity to talk to the assistant head of department, the director of studies for undergraduate studies, the financial officer, the health and safety representative, and others.

Doctoral student council

The Department’s Doctoral student council is a forum for discussing common interests of doctoral students. The council usually meets once a month and has a chair and a vice chair. In these meetings, you can raise issues and problems encountered in your work as a doctoral student and that you are having difficulty resolving on your own. The chair and vice chair of the council are also contact points for the Director of PhD studies and the Assistant head of department with responsibilities for PhD students. Contact information for the doctoral student council is available from the Deputy Head of Department or Director of studies.

Internationalisation

The department encourages participation in international conferences (along with national ones, of course) as well as stays in other research and education environments. You are first and foremost expected to apply for external funding for participation in conferences, doctoral studies courses in other locations and for stays in other environments. If you are unable to obtain funding in this way, or if funds obtained are insufficient, then you can contact the assistant head of department. In that case, when participating in a conference, you are usually expected to present a paper. Longer stays abroad must be funded externally.

Project PhDs 

To be a project PhD student means to be funded by external research project grants. Project-funded PhDs are employed by the Department and treated the same way as faculty funded PhDs. As for any PhD student, up to 20 percent of your employment can consist in services to the department (“institutionstjänstgöring”, i.,e., teaching or similar activities), which makes you eligible for an extension of your employment. Services that make you eligible for an extension cannot stem directly from your PhD thesis work and must be funded by the department. The authority to grant extended time of employment on other grounds rests with the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and is subject to formal regulations. The purpose of these regulations is to provide equal opportunities to all PhD students.

Project related services performed by a project-funded PhD student should always be relevant to your PhD thesis, even if these services include work that does not contribute directly to the thesis (such as dissemination of information to the public). Administrative tasks that could be accomplished by a research assistant should not be performed by a project PhD. In cases of conflict, PhD courses and thesis work should be given priority over project related activities. In order to avoid an excessive workload, you should consult your supervisor, assistant supervisor and (in case that is a different person) the project manager before engaging in project related activities that do not directly contribute to your PhD thesis. The same goes for faculty funded PhD students, who should always consult their supervisors before engaging in activities not directly related to their thesis.

Project funded PhD students will have access to the same sum of money from project funds as faculty funded PhD students receive for thesis related expenses. These funds will be made available to you at the beginning of you PhD employment.