Specialist interns to the world outside academia

The doctoral programmes of the University of Lapland produce annually around thirty experts to various sectors of business. The university actively endeavours to support activities in various sectors of society and business and to advance the expertise development and employment opportunities of future doctors. In pursuance of these goals we are looking for private, public, and third sector organisations that are interested in research, development, and project cooperation and willing to offer future doctors a specialist internship lasting 1–2 months.

 

The goal of a specialist internship is to strengthen and enable cooperation that benefits both the internship provider and the intern. The receiving organisation gets a chance to utilise the doctoral student’s academic expertise and researcher skills in the development of its operations, while the student gets an opportunity to advance and diversify his/her academic expertise and ability to apply thesis-related skills into practice. A specialist work placement internship is planned case-by-case by the intern, dissertation supervisor, and the receiving organisation before the beginning of the internship.

The following may be required from a doctoral student during an internship:

• participation in planning the operations of the organisation and solving its developmental challenges, especially to the extent that the tasks deal with the student’s dissertation
• performing tasks related to research and development in the doctoral student's field of study.
  

A host organisation is expected to offer the following to a student during an internship:

• a contract of employment for an internship period lasting 1–2 months
• tasks that correspond to the student’s skills and support his/her dissertation research
• good working conditions
• orientation to the tasks and the goals of the internship.
  

In addition, we would like to receive the organisation’s views at the end of the expert internship. There is a report template available.

Through the internship voucher of the University of Lapland, the internship provider may receive €1,500–2,500 to partly cover the intern's salary. In addition to voucher support, we recommend that the provider pay the intern a salary proportional to the requirement level of the specialist tasks and the performance of the intern.

We pay the voucher support directly to the organisation after a completed internship, provided that the organisation has paid the intern a salary amounting at least to the support and meeting the minimum employment requirement laid down by Kela (€1,236/month in 2020). The organisation is responsible for the workspace and material costs.

Organisations can offer internships directly to doctoral students, the academic subjects of the university, or the Graduate School of the University of Lapland. Organisations may also use the Aarresaari career services network to target their search for a suitable specialist more accurately. They can enter a short description of the available internship into the Arressaari database. The description should contain the following:

• a concise description of the company, its business area, and the field of the specialist internship on offer
• the duration of the internship
• the tasks and working conditions in brief
• voucher financing and additional pay.
  

For further instructions on offering an internship and looking for doctoral students, please contact the Career and Recruitment Services of the University of Lapland at www.ulapland.fi/rekry. Contact information: Satu Peteri, (firstname.lastname@ulapland.fi) +358 40 701 3833.  

The Working Life Cooperation in Strategic Researcher Training project contributes to stronger interaction between the doctoral students of the University of Lapland and businesses. The project supports the development of doctoral students’ professional skills and the creation of their professional networks, while offering businesses, associations, and public sector organisations a chance to utilise the expertise of doctoral students. The project is administered by the Graduate School of the University of Lapland and financed by the European Social Fund.

Paula Tulppo

Project Manager
Working Life Cooperation in Strategic Doctoral Training
Graduate School
University of Lapland, Rovaniemi

paula.tulppo(at)ulapland.fi
Phone: +358 40 484 4379

www.ulapland.fi/phdwork