Admission of industrial doctoral students at LTH (process description)
On this page, you will find a process description of how the admission of an industrial doctoral student is done at LTH.
Contact
The department's primary contact when admitting an industrial doctoral student is the Doctoral Programme function LTH:s Faculty Office. Questions concerning the agreement will be attended to by a lawyer when the process reaches that point.
Contact the Doctoral Programme function via the email forskarutbildning [at] lth [dot] lu [dot] se (forskarutbildning[at]lth[dot]lu[dot]se)
Initial discussion with external party
The initial discussions with the external party (business, municipal, regional or national authorities) include the following aspects:
- Formulation of the project (Takes place between researcher/research group and external party).
- Head of department is informed that one or more industrial doctoral students are planned for admission.
- Identification of current candidate(s) as industrial doctoral student.
- The department carries out a check of the qualifications of the prospective industrial doctoral students, similar to the process carried out before hiring a doctoral student. This should be done before entering the contract process, here the department can get support from HR.
- The department contacts the coordinator for PhD-administration and informs that the process has started via email to forskarutbildning [at] lth [dot] lu [dot] se (forskarutbildning[at]lth[dot]lu[dot]se)
Agreement
Once the initial discussions are finalised, an agreement will need to be made and signed.
Preparing agreement
The department is responsible for developing the agreement together with the external party, using following support:
- The template for industrial doctoral student agreements.
- LU's Legal Division must be consulted if the agreement does not follow LU's template for industrial doctoral students.
- The coordinator for PhD-administration, who checks the agreement with regard to the educational aspects.
- The agreement is submitted to the coordinator for PhD-administration.
In cases where LU (department and Legal Division) and the external party do not agree on the agreement, the Dean of LTH can assist the department in further handling.
Template for industrial doctorate agreement
The template for industrial doctoral agreements is available to download on Medarbetarwebben in English under the section Mallavtal tillgängliga på engelska.
Template for industrial agreemement at Medarbetarwebben
The template is updated on an regular basis so make sure to download it again before any new application.
Conditions for participating in projects
Before taking part in the project each participant must sign the agreement Conditions for participation. The agreement can be downloaded from Staff pages.
The agreement Conditions for participation on Staff pages
Signing of agreements
The coordinator for PhD-administration is responsible for ensuring that the original agreement is signed by the Dean in duplicates.
Digital signatures are acceptable, if they meet LU's requirements. Scanned signatures from external parties are fine for agreements where the external party is located outside of Sweden.
A checklist is to be attached to the agreement that confirms:
- If the agreement is reviewed by the Legal Division.
- If the agreement does not follow the template/legal advice, specify in which respects/paragraphs.
- Whether the supervisor from the external party is a full or part owner of the external organization.
- That a risk assessment has been made (handled according to STYR 2025/656).
The department registers the agreement.
Admission
The agreement and the checklist form a prerequisite for the admission application.
The department submits an application for admission with other sources of funding to the coordinator of PhD-administration. The application needs to contain the following attachments:
- Agreement for industrial doctoral students.
- Certificate of employment.
- Degree certificate.
- The head of department's opinion on the applicant's general and specific admission requirements for the subject.
- Notes from the consultation meeting regarding admission of doctoral student.
Template for consultation notes, in Swedish (PDF, 155 KB, new tab)
The coordinator for PhD-administration processes the application. The processing time depends on the workload of the doctoral education function and whether the documents need to be supplemented.
Decisions are made by the Chair of the Research Programmes Board.
The research programme coordinator registers the application documents and the decision.