This new year begins with a new name as the association says goodbye to Helsingin yliopiston jatko-opiskelijat / Doktorander vid Helsingfors universitet / Association of Doctoral Students at the University of Helsinki, and welcomes the new name that was chosen at the autumn meeting in November 2016:

Helsingin Yliopiston Väitöskirjatutkijat
Doktorander vid Helsingfors Universitet
University of Helsinki PhD Students

The change mainly concerns the Finnish part of the name where the word “jatko-opiskelija” has been replaced with “väitöskirjatutkija”, a PhD researcher. The possibility of changing the name of the association has kept popping up since the founding of the association in 2014 and now the members who were present at the autumn meeting agreed that the time was right to change it. We also adapted the new acronym: HYVÄT.

There was a will to emphasize our role as researchers rather than our role as students for several reasons. First, and most important, research is what we do in practice. In one sense we of course are studying and also do courses as regular students, but our main task is learning how to be researchers by doing actual new scientific research in various fields. Second, the prolonged status of student does not necessarily look beneficial on the CV when we are applying for jobs outside academia after we have finished our dissertations. If we refer to ourselves as researchers it looks like we have been doing work, which we thought is a more accurate description. Third, even the university is doing away with the term “jatko-opiskelija”, although it has decided to use the term “tohtorikoulutettava”, meaning “a person who is being given a doctoral education” instead.

The Swedish term “doktorand” needed no changing because it is perfect as it is, describing the exact phase of workinglife and specialising we are going through when completing our PhD degrees. In the English version the autumn meeting decided to keep the term “PhD student” because it seemed to be the most common term, although options like “PhD candidate/PhD researcher” were discussed too.

 

In addition to the new name, the year also begins with a new action plan!
The main points of it are listed below, stay tuned for more information about Pub Nights and other events that will follow shortly!

Influencing doctoral training at the University

• In 2017 the association will continue to influence decision-­making relating to the doctoral education
• In the autumn of 2017 the Association will organise elections for doctoral student
  representatives for the different steering groups for doctoral schools and programmes. The association will also keep in touch with the doctoral student representatives of doctoral schools and programmes in order to stay updated on the current issues related to doctoral education and to the needs of doctoral students in different parts of the university.
• The association will continue to work towards ensuring that all doctoral students, regardless of their source of funding, have the same conditions for doing research.

Leisure activities

• The association will organise after-­work events every month as well as a couple of larger events, such as a Christmas party and a spring party.

Co-­operation

• The association will continue co-­operation with other organizations that share our interest for the welfare of doctoral students, both in Helsinki and nationwide

Communications

• The existing communication channels, (blog, e-­mail list, social media) will continue to be used to both spread information and actively collect the comments and opinions from members
• The association will work for the goal that future new doctoral students get more practical information when starting their studies at the university