Supervision & PhD advisory committee

All yDiv doctoral reseachers who have started their PhD as of 2023 have to fill in the individual supervision agreement together with their main supervisor. The signed document has to be send to the yDiv coordination office. Individual agreements (see appendix) are documented and kept between the doctoral researcher and the supervisor. They are not shared with yDiv. Individual agreements should also be revisited during the annual appraisal interview or whenever needed.

In addition to the main supervisor, yDiv doctoral researchers are co-supervised and mentored by the PhD advisory committees (PAC).

The aim of the PAC is to support the doctoral researcher in his or her project and career planning.

If you have any questions regarding the PAC process, or if you have any problems with your supervisor or PAC team, do not hesitate to contact the yDiv coordination.

For details on the PAC and PAC meeting please check our PAC guide.

Requirements and tasks PAC members

Requirements

All members of the PAC team should be active researchers and hold a PhD degree. To ensure interdisciplinary exchange, at least two PAC members should belong to different iDiv research groups.

Tasks of the PAC members

Attend the PAC meetings and serve as personal contact for individual advise

Monitor the doctoral researcher’s work progress

Advise doctoral researcher regarding the development of their research project

Help in building the doctoral researcher’s professional network

Assist the doctoral researcher in aspects of career planning

Tasks of the doctoral researcher

Convene the PAC and organise the meetings

Report about progress of the PhD project (i.e. milestones, publications, delays)

Prepare PAC documents (project plan and progress reports) and sends them to the PAC and the yDiv coordination

The PAC Guide for Supervisors holds all information a supervisor has to know about the PAC. We recommend sending it to your potential PAC team members when asking them.

How the PAC process works

Form your PAC together with your main supervisor within three months after joining yDiv. The supervision agreement (PDF) must be signed by all supervisors and submitted to the yDiv coordinator.

After you have formed your PAC, you invite them and the yDiv coordinator to the initial “kick-off” meeting to discuss your project plan. Before this meeting you prepare the project plan document (PDF) and send it to your PAC members.

After the kick-off meeting, you convene your PAC for annual progress meetings (or whenever needed). For those meetings you prepare the progress report (PDF).