Dissemination/working hours

PhD students employed at Aarhus University (5+3) are obligated to deliver what corresponds to 840 working hours at the department during their PhD study according to the official PhD regulations. However, all PhD students employed at GSTS are automatically granted one semester’s (140 hours) exemption from the dissemination/work obligation with no reduction in pay.

PhD students enrolled in 3+5 or 4+4 programmes are obligated to deliver 280 working hours per year at the department during part B of their study programme. However, all PhD students employed at GSTS are automatically granted one semester’s (140 hours) exemption from the dissemination/work obligation with no reduction in pay.

Please notice that if you end up with more than the maximum stated number of working hours, this will not grant you any additional pay aside from your PhD salary.

PhD students that are enrolled but not employed at Aarhus University are not obligated to deliver 840 hours, but they must still meet the dissemination requirement that is a mandatory part of the PhD programme.

In order to ensure a fair distribution of teaching assignments for PhD students, and in order to ensure that the PhD students get a broad exposure to different kinds of dissemination-related tasks, the following principles will be implemented for the PhD students enrolled under engineering:

1. The PhD student must deliver a certain number of working hour to the department during their PhD study. The exact number of hours is specified in each student's Google spreadsheet. It is recommended that these responsibilities are heavier at the beginning of the PhD study.
2. The main PhD supervisor for each PhD student has (together with the member of the PhD committee from the same section)  the overall responsibility for ensuring that the PhD student completes a fair amount of teaching activities and that it is either relevant for the subject of the PhD student or is basic knowledge that the PhD student does not need to spend too much time getting into.
3. In addition, the main PhD supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the PhD student gets experience with different kinds of teaching-related tasks, e.g. supervision, lectures, design and correction of exercises, workshops, assessment and peer-reviewing. This is essential in order to give the PhD student the proper knowledge to decide upon the future career path after completing the PhD study. PhD students should never be given full responsibility for a course unless they have had the necessary didactic training.
4. The Department's PhD committee has members from each research section, and they have the responsibility for ensuring that the PhD supervisors plan the teaching activities for the PhD students once every semester.
5. Study responsible stakeholders may send requests to the relevant PhD committee member at the Department to find a PhD student for different teaching assignments. The member of the PhD committee will then, to the best of his ability, attempt to provide PhD student resources for such assignments, taking into account the existing plans made by the main PhD supervisors and the goal of having the PhD students try different types of tasks during their PhD study

In general, dissemination can be viewed as different activities meant to communicate different disciplinary material to stakeholders at different levels of experience. The activities that can be included under dissemination are:

• Help prepare a course or a lecture (of different sizes).
• Giving lectures in different courses.
• Preparing exercises or other materials for a course.
• Correcting exercises for a course and giving written or oral feedback to the students.
• Assisting students with exercises or with lab work as course instructor.
• Co-supervisor for group work at different semesters.
• Co-supervisor for BSc and MSc theses.
• Creation of web pages, book chapters or manuals communicating disciplinary material.
• Preparation and delivery of presentations and posters.
• Internal coordination in connection with the PhD committee or the yearly PhD event.
• Writing texts for patent applications.
• Communication with media stakeholders such as journalists.
• Presentation of research results internally and externally to companies or at conferences.
• Assistance in research activities that are not directly relevant for the PhD research, for example in project deliverables or project applications.
• General marketing activities towards young students, e.g. as a part of AU activities at high schools (det rullende universitet).

The amount of hours for each dissemination activity needs to be fair and this will be determined by the members of the Department's PhD committee. Note that a factor is used for preparation for giving lectures (factor 5) and for assisting with exercises (factor 3).  

Be aware that the actual writing of articles is not considered dissemination. It is a part of the research itself.

PhD students with external funding

If a PhD student is fully (or mostly) sponsored by external funds,  the supervisor is allowed to use the PhD student for more activities related to the funding agency (typically a project), but the PhD student still has to have diversity in his/her dissemination activities.