Starting your PhD

Start date

After you have received an offer of admission to one of our PhD programmes, we will contact you to agree on a start date.

Signing the employment contract

If you are employed in a research fellow position, you will receive an employment contract, a declaration of confidentiality and IT regulations. You must sign and return these documents within the deadlines set by VID.

It is important that you return the documents as soon as possible, so that you are issued with a user name and password before you start.

Local managers

VID’s two PhD centres have their headquarters in Oslo and Stavanger. The centre managers are based in these towns.

If you are a research fellow and have been assigned an office space on another campus than where your center manager is located, you will be assigned a local manager.

Workplace

VID has different office solutions. Whether you have a workplace at VID for all or part of your studies is regulated by the agreement that has been entered into. You will be informed of this by your center manager.

Admission agreement

Starting-up, you sign an enrollment agreement. The enrollment agreement describes your relationship at the research centers and VID.

Revised project description

Within three months after admission to the PhD program, a revised project description must be sent to the director of the centre.
The project description should be revised in collaboration with the main supervisor.

Presentation on the project pages

All PhD projects are presented on our research pages. See the overview of ongoing projects at the Center for Diakonia and Professional Practice and the Center for World Christianity and Religion. Submit a presentation of your project using the same structure as on these pages to either:

Diakonia, values ​​and professional practice: erlend.from@vid.no

Theology and religion: christine.lukash@vid.no

Health Science: kari.voll@vid.no

Register PhD project in Cristin's project catalogue

At VID, all PhD projects must be registered in the project catalogue in Cristin. The project is registered by you and linked to your profile in Cristin. If you have not registered your project, contact cristinprosjekt@vid.no for guidance and guidelines. A link to the PhD project must be added to the research group you belong to. If you have already registered the project, remember to inform your research group leader.

Buddy arrangement

As a newly employed research fellow at VID, you will receive follow-up from a buddy throughout your first semester. The purpose of the arrangement is to include newly employed fellows in the social environment at the centre, in addition to creating space for the exchange of experience. Research advisers at the centers are responsible for coordinating relationships and putting the parties involved in contact with each other.

Info about employee courses

VID has a separate training program for new employees which, among other things, includes shorter courses in various tools, handbooks, routines and systems that new employees in VID must familiarize themselves with. Visit the page Guide for new employees at VID on the intranet for further information.

Holiday

Vacation must be completed during the employee period, and must be registered in "Min Visma". It is not possible to use holiday days when the employment period is over. There is also no opportunity to "pay out" holiday days. For additional information, see also the personnel handbook.

Absence

Reduced working hours due to health, social and welfare reasons may give the right to an extension of the scholarship period. There are separate regulations for terms of employment for positions such as postdoctoral fellow, research fellow, scientific assistant and specialist candidate. § 2-3 of these regulations deal, among other things, with the extension of the employment period as a result of statutory and contractual absence. For additional information, see also the personnel handbook.

Connection of equipment

You will be assigned a PC, username and password by IT support at start-up. You must use the username later for Feide login and e-mail account. You will also receive an e-mail with information about your new e-mail address, as well as information about your mobile subscription.

Access

To be able to navigate in all our electronic systems, you must first create a user in Feide. You can then order your employee card in the service portal. You upload a photo to the card in the portal yourself. You must be connected to Eduroam in the college's premises to have a card created. Your employee card works as a library card in our libraries, a login card for the photocopier and an access card to the college's premises. Access to Endnote depends on the creation of Feide user. The access is created by the IT section. All VID's campuses use Eduroam. Find more information about logging in here.

Additional accesses

If you need access to SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), NVivo (data analysis tool for qualitative research) or VPN solution for home office, you can apply for this to your center manager.

My Visma

VID uses the computer program Visma for reimbursement of expenses, registration of absence and vacation. Visma is available in English. We offer training courses for new employees in VISMA via the VID Academy. You can find more information under “New employee in VID”.

Operating account

All scholarship holders have their own operating account and use the Visma computer program for reimbursement of expenses. Note that your own operating account is associated with a specific project number that you must state when making refunds.

Travel in Gtravel

All VID employees must book their trips via the portal of the travel agency Gtravel: https://www.gtravel.no/. You must follow the college's regulations for booking travel. You can find this in the Personnel handbook.

Employee portal

At the employee portal you will find, among other things, information about events at VID and news updates.

Connection of equipment

Once you have been registered in our student database, you will receive a letter containing your student number and pin code. If you are a PhD student, this will be your login information for Feide and our computer systems. You use your own email address and phone number as contact information. Those who need a VID e-mail address have the opportunity to apply for it. If necessary, contact your PhD advisor.

Access

To be able to navigate in all our electronic systems, you must first create a user in Feide. You can then order your student card. You upload a photo to the card in the portal yourself. You must be connected to Eudoram in the college's premises to have a card created. Your student card works as a library card in our libraries and as a login card for the copier (with top-up) and access card to the college's premises. As a student, you can also access the reference tool EndNote. You will find more information about EndNote and how to go about getting the program installed on the library's website. As a student, you can log in to Eduroam on all our campuses. You will find more information about networks and logging in on the websites of IT support for students. On this page you will also find information about Feide, printing and free download of the Office 365 package. Contact your center manager if you need NVivo or SPSS.

Temporary association to VID

Externally funded PhD students can apply for temporary association to VID.To get access to VID's e-mail and VID's systems, you must fill in an “Temporary affiliation and access agreement” and upload it with the application.

Apply temporary association here (Nettskjema)

Semester fee

As an externally funded student, you must pay semester fees to VID. As per 2024, the fee per semester is NOK 3200,-. The semester fee is published in Studentweb at the beginning of each semester.

Work on campus

If you want to work on campus, you can use the reading room or library at the various study locations.

Our platforms

Studentweb

In studentweb you can register for the semester and sign up for classes and exams in Studentweb. In studentweb you will also find grades/results for your submitted assignments and you can update your contact information and order a transcript of grades.

When you log in for the first time, you must check your personal information (name, address, email) and check that you have created an education plan. Please note that information about the working title of your project and supervisors is entered at start-up and is not necessarily updated during the course of your studies.

We would like you to cross off the exchange of results between educational institutions in Norway. Remember to register for the courses you will be taking this semester. The admission deadlines are usually September 15 and February 15 respectively. If you are starting outside this period, please contact your PhD advisor. More information about course registration can be found under the tab “Complete”. Log in to Studentweb and register for the courses you want. If the deadline has expired, send an overview of the courses you wish to register for to the PhD advisor at your center.

The certificate portal

We would like you to sign up in Studentweb for the exchange of results between educational institutions in Norway in the Certificate Portal.

Canvas

Canvas is VID's learning platform. You log in to Canvas on our website. You will have access to PhD courses after you have registered for classes and exams in Studentweb. The individual course pages contain information and learning materials for the course you are taking. Remember that you must have created a Feide login to log in to Canvas.

You will automatically be added to “Generic PhD courses” upon admission. Here you will find information about all the courses that are offered as part of the research development program.

Inspera

Inspera Assessment is the platform VID uses for submitting exams and credit-bearing papers. You log in to Inspera Assessment on our website. You will find more information about exams and submission of assignments in Inspera Assessment, under the tab Info for PhD students: Completion. You can log in to Inspera to test and submit a demo exam, this is openly available. Login to Inspera is done through your Feide user.

Please contact the exam administration, eksamen@vid.no, if you have problems logging in to Inspera Assessment.

Information about library courses

Information about services and tools that support the research process gathered on our page for research support. Here you will also find user support for videos and other digital resources offered by the library. The libraries hold regular courses in reference tools and source searches.

Privacy

VID offers training in the processing of personal data. Please contact the center manager for more information. VID has a separate procedure for the processing of personal data in research and student assignments, which you can find on the website for privacy and GDPR.

Research data management

How you handle your research data is an important part of your research project. VID has prepared a guide that provides an overview of important aspects of research data management.