Guidelines pertaining to the application assessment process for doctoral research fellowships at the Faculty of Humanities

These guidelines apply to all doctoral research fellowships:

1. Fellowships not connected to a specific academic field or unit, advertised by the Faculty.
2. Fellowships connected to a specific academic field, project or unit, advertised by an academic department/centre or several of these working in cooperation.
3. Externally funded research fellowships.

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All fellowships that will be held for more than one year must be advertised publicly. The advertisement must conform to the designated template. The content of the advertisement must be sent to the Faculty’s Selection Committee for approval.

For externally funded fellowships:
The Department Board may approve the content of the advertisement without review by the Faculty’s Selection Committee.

Application

Applications are to be submitted to the Faculty of Humanities according to instructions stated in the advertisement. Applications that do not comply with these requirements will be rejected without further processing.

Project description

The project description must be formulated in keeping with the Faculty’s guidelines and must not exceed five pages (not including the literature list). It may be written in Norwegian (or Danish or Swedish) or English.

Admission requirements

The objective of the research fellowship is to support the candidate in completing the research training programme that culminates in conferral of the Ph.D. degree. Only those admitted to the Ph.D. programme are eligible to receive a research fellowship.

To be eligible for admission to the Ph.D. programme at the University of Oslo, applicants must have at least a five-year basic education (master’s degree or the equivalent) or equivalent education that the relevant Faculty has approved as a basis for admission. In special cases, the Faculty may grant admission on the basis of a one-year master’s degree following an assessment of the study programme’s scope and quality.

The requirements for the master’s degree (or equivalent) must be completed and the final evaluation results must be available at the time of application. Certificates and educational transcripts submitted after the deadline will not be accepted.

Admission of a candidate implies that the programme has the necessary supervisory expertise and capacity in the field in which the candidate wishes to write his or her dissertation.                    

Committee

For research fellowships advertised by the Faculty of Humanities:
The Ph.D. Board serves as the assessment committee for applications submitted for the relevant Ph.D. concentration.  

 For research fellowships advertised by an academic department/centre under the Faculty of Humanities:
An assessment committee comprised of three persons is appointed. The committee must have the following representation:

1. Two experts with competency in the academic field to which the fellowship is connected. If the fellowship is connected to a project, a project manager or other coordinator for the project must be appointed.
2. The head of department/head of research or a person designated as his or her representative.

If possible, both genders are to be represented on the committee.

When a fellowship could be placed under several departments or centres, the relevant heads of department/heads of research must cooperate on appointing a committee comprised of at least one member from each of the departments concerned.

Assessment of applications

For research fellowships advertised by the Faculty of Humanities:
The chairperson of the Ph.D. Board distributes the applications among the experts at the units in cooperation with the head of research at the relevant unit. The expert assesses the application and fills out the assessment form. The head of research assesses the department’s/centre’s capacity to provide supervision. The completed assessment form is returned to the Ph.D. Board.  

The members of the Ph.D. Board read all the submitted applications and cooperate on filling out the assessment forms.  

For research fellowships advertised by an academic department/centre under the Faculty of Humanities:
Applications for fellowships advertised by an academic department/centre are not required to undergo assessment by an expert outside of the committee. Two members of the committee asess each application and individually fill out an assessment form.

Applications are assessed in relation to the following criteria:

• Suitability: The applicant’s academic background and marks, study progression, time passed since the final examination, and relevant academic activity.
• Project quality: The project’s scientific merit, research-related relevance and innovation, relevance for the academic field at the Faculty of Humanities, connection with academic networks, and feasibility within the framework of the Ph.D. programme and the fellowship.

The assessments are exempt from public access and are not sent to the applicant. 

Selection and appointment

Based on the two assessments of each application, the committee/Ph.D. Board writes a recommendation using the designated template for nominations. The committee ranks the best applicants and provides an explanation of its reasoning. The two assessment forms for each application must be attached to the nominations form.

The assessment committee may choose to conduct interviews.

The assessments are exempt from public access and are not sent to the applicant.

For research fellowships advertised by the Faculty of Humanities:
The recommendations from the Ph.D. Boards and the assessments of applications are deliberated by the Committee for Research Affairs at the Faculty of Humanities. The Committee for Research Affairs formulates an overall recommendation and submits this to the Faculty’s Selection Committee, which is responsible for final approval of appointments to research fellowships.

For research fellowships advertised by an academic department/centre under the Faculty of Humanities:  
The committee’s recommendation is deliberated by the Department Board, which approves the recommendation. The recommendation is then sent the Faculty’s appointment committee, which is responsible for final approval of appointments to research fellowships.

The final decision on appointments is made public in the minutes of the meeting of the Faculty’s Selection Committee and/or is announced in a letter to the applicants.