KI's doctoral education is of very high standard according to external review
An external review panel has assessed that doctoral education at Karolinska Institutet is characterised by ambition and academic excellence. The external review was initiated by the Committee for Doctoral Education.
“Karolinska Institutet has built a robust doctoral education environment characterized by ambition and academic excellence. This is reflected in the international reputation as a leader in doctoral education, and several innovative tools are acknowledged as best practices and adapted by other institutes.”
This is the conclusion reached by a panel in the 2025 external review of KI's doctoral education, initiated by the Committee for Doctoral Education (KFU) within the framework of KI's integrated quality system.
“The high quality of our doctoral education is primarily due to the excellent work carried out at the departments: by supervisors, directors of studies, course providers and administrators," says Bob Harris, academic vice president of doctoral education. "It is important that our activities are reviewed so that we can gain an objective perspective on what we do, and we have received many creative and interesting recommendations that the newly elected Committee for Doctoral Education and the soon elected Dean and Vice-dean for doctoral education will use as a basis for their continued development work."
The review panel also highlighted weaknesses, and what they particularly emphasise is the difficulty for clinical doctoral students to obtain sufficient time for their research.
Self-evaluation and interviews
The review panel consisted of four external researchers with extensive experience of doctoral education from their respective higher education institutions, together with one external doctoral student.
Their assessment is based partly on KI's self-evaluation of strengths and challenges, and partly on interviews. The interview groups consisted of doctoral students (appointed by the Doctoral Student Association), randomly selected supervisors, those responsible for course activities and Directors of Doctoral Studies.