Step One: Administrative Screening
Applications are submitted to the Jobbnorge-portal within the announced deadline.
The PhD secretary and/or the HR department export key applicant data to a spreadsheet («qualifications matrix»), and checks if all mandatory attachments have been submitted, and makes a tentative list of qualified and not qualified applicants.
The mandatory attachments are:
- Master’s thesis or list of publications/previous academic work
- Project proposal
- Transcripts from undergraduate and graduate education
The chair of the PhD programme works with this spreadsheet, verifying the list of candidates, and:
- Checks if the qualifies applicants meet the 300 ECTS requirement criteria based on submitted documentation.
- For admission to the PhD-programme, the applicant is required to hold a 5 year Master’s degree or equivalent. Candidates with 240 to 300 ECTS may still be forwarded to the evaluation commitee, with a special justification, ref. § 5-1 Regulations for the Philosophiae Doctor Degree (PhD) at Molde University College – Specialized University in Logistics
- Calculates an average grade for the graduate education and converts it into the ECTS grading scale (threshold B).
- Checks if the educational background is suitable for the programme.
- Checks if the submitted project proposal is relevant to the announcement.
The administrative screening ends with a list of qualified applicants that fulfil all these criteria (the qualifications matrix).
Step Two: Committee Assessment
The PhD committee appoints one or more committees comprising faculty members to conduct a thorough assessment of the qualified applicants. The committee(s) are given full access to the applications in the Jobbnorge-portal and receive the qualifications matrix with key information.
The committee assessment should end up with 0-6 candidates being nominated for the position, preferably with a tentative ranking presented in the report.
The report is normally due within 4 weeks.
The Evaluation Committee’s mandate
The committee’s mandate is basically to find the candidates that seem to be best qualified for the announced position based on the submitted applications and how well they align with the announcement text. This leaves the committee with some flexibility regarding the emphasis put on different factors, but the committee report should explain how the assessment has been carried out.
The committees are advised not to put too much emphasis on the calculated average grade of the candidates since there is significant uncertainty related to the comparability of the calculated and converted average grades of the candidates, given the fact that these grades stem from different countries and different universities and different academic program areas.
The quality of the submitted thesis and/or other academic work, and the quality of the project proposal, including feasibility, would normally be the main criteria for the ranking of the candidates – but factors like grades, aptness of the educational or professional background, recommendation letters, etc. could also be given some weight.
If a committee member has a special relationship with an applicant (e.g. having supervised her/his thesis), this should be mentioned in the committee report. If there is a personal relationship with one or more of the candidates, the committee member should discuss this with the chair of the PhD committee, which will consider appointing a different committee member.
The committee report should briefly describe the reason for not ranking individual candidates and provide a somewhat more detailed justification for those who are nominated for the position.
Step 3: The Docotral Committee of Logistic's assessment
Based on the report from the evaluation committee and the submitted applications, the PhD Logistics committee makes a recommendation to the Faculty announcing the position.
This recommendation could be identical to the one provided by the evaluation committee, or it may be different if the PhD committee finds reasons to deviate from that proposition.
Step 4: The Assessment Process of The Faculty
Based on the resolution of the PhD committee the Faculty initiates a broader evaluation of the candidates. This process is normally limited to the candidates proposed by the PhD committee.
This process will mainly revolve around quality assurance related to the authenticity of the submitted documentation, checking that the candidates have proper ownership to the thesis and proposal content, and checking that the candidates have the necessary command of the English language.
This is mainly done through online, or in-person, interviews with the candidates.
Based on this process, which also normally involves the Faculty Board, the Dean prepares a revised ranking of candidates for the position, which is put forward to the Appointments Committee (“Ansettelsesutvalget”).
Step 5: Ruling by the Appointments Committee
The Appointments Committee makes a final decision about which candidates should be offered the position, based on the nomination from the dean.
Often this ruling contains more than one applicant, indicating a prioritized list.
Applicants will then be offered the position and given a few days to accept the offer. If the offer is turned down, the next candidate on the list will have an offer, and so on.
The offers are made conditional upon candidates being admitted to the PhD Logistics programme. The selected candidate will have to submit an application containing a project proposal, a tentative plan for doctoral courses, a plan of progress, and possibly propositions of supervisors and preliminary plans for a research stay abroad. The candidates will normally be offered assistance from a relevant member of the faculty in the process of preparing the application.
If the PhD Logistics committee declines the application, the offer of the scholarship is withdrawn, and the offer may be given to another applicant.