The PhD project is a special kind of research project, with especially defined beginning and end, and which perhaps also have special characteristics to its middle - not least due to its reliance on the vision and effort of one single person.
This Research Forum presents four PhD-projects at IMV. Based on the stage the PhD researchers are in now, they reflect on their plans and expectations about how it will unfold, and/or their experiences and insights from how it actually evolved.
The presenters are:
Alizée Piel:
My presentation will discuss about the evolution my thesis took by traveling through three different universities and the position of a cross-disciplinary project get into disciplines like Musicology according to the university and its available resources. Since September 2025, I have the great opportunity to work at IMV as a formal PhD Student but my research on kulokk, ecology and tradition started in 2020 at the end of my Master degree, in the University Rennes 2. In 2021, I moved in Norway and I joined UiO as a guest researcher while working for another university. I would like to discuss the several challenges and chances I encountered on my research course due to my choice of subject and the different environments I integrated.
Cristina Jorda I Custal:
This presentation reflects on my first two months as a PhD student, a period of adjustment, exploration, and gradual focus. Between settling into a new country and navigating university life, I spent much of this time defining my research direction. What began as a broad proposal is now evolving into a project that explores the relationship between melody and contour using machine learning techniques. I will explain the objectives of my current project and outline the stages ahead, reflecting on both my personal and research development during these challenging initial months.
Øyvind Skjerdal:
Øyvind will discuss some aspects of the late stages of a Phd project, focusing especially on how writing a thesis involves making parts of the research prosess disappear. Like with a music record, which represents rather than documents a creative process, writing in these late stages seems to involve a whole lot of erasing the half thought thoughts that informed the more fully formed ones.
Eirik Jacobsen:
Eirik will discuss the twists, turns and afterlife of the PhD process: how does the PhD work progress over time, which darlings are killed along the way, and what lives on in the afterlife of the PhD period.