“With the Orpheus quality stamp, the Faculty of Medicine will become an even more attractive place for students applying for a doctoral position. The accreditation is also an important part of the faculty’s internal work on quality”, says vice dean Heiko Herwald, who was one of the people who took the initiative to start the work on gaining the accreditation.

“One of the goals of Orpheus is to influence decision-makers nationally and internationally to achieve equally high standards for PhD programmes across Europe. This is something we support. We believe it will increase the mobility of students applying for a doctoral position”, says Heiko Herwald.

The accreditation took place in two stages, with a self-evaluation and a site visit by four reviewers. The assessment of the reviewers was that the Faculty of Medicine’s PhD programme is of high quality and it also provided the faculty with feedback on areas for further development within the PhD programme. It includes improving the internationalisation, monitoring doctoral student completion rates and following their subsequent careers after graduation.

“We will become more proactive with regard to international collaborations in the PhD programme, particularly with regard to identifying potential partner universities for joint PhDs. We will also promote the opportunities for short visits to research laboratories and hospitals abroad within the framework of both fulltime and part-time studies”, says vice dean Karin Jirström, responsible for the faculty’s PhD programme since the beginning of the year.

“We have already started the work to strengthen the assessment of doctoral students, which involves the implementation of more regular appraisals of thesis work progress. We will also begin work on the follow-up of our alumni,” concludes Karin Jirström. 

ORPHEUS stands for ‘Organisation of PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System”

Read more about the organisation on their website