International collaboration within doctoral education

KI has established a number of formal collaborative agreements on doctoral education with other universities and research institutions on international level.

The departments at KI have the responsibility for doctoral students and the majority of the collaborations at doctoral level are at departmental level. There are a few exceptions, where collaborative agreements are initiated and supported centrally.

Collaborative agreements

Canada

The Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto and Karolinska Institutet offer short-term PhD student research experience of up to one year at respective institution. The PhD student will continue to be registered at their home institution and pay the requisite fees to the same.

Collaboration with Canada

China

Karolinska Institutet and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) offer a short term student exchange program for hosting 1-2 doctoral students from each university per year. The duration of the short-term exchange of doctoral students will be from 1-6 months.

Collaboration with China

Japan

Mobility of PhD students are included in the strategic partnership with The University of Tokyo (UTokyo).

RIKEN offers a short term student exchange program for hosting doctoral students from KI. The duration of acceptance of doctoral students from KI will be from 3 months to less than 12 months for each KI student.

Collaboration with Japan

Singapore

Doctoral programme (double degree programme) with Nanyang Technological University and Short-term Exchange programme for PhD students with National University of Singapore.

Collaboration with Singapore

Tanzania

Researchers and teachers at Karolinska Institutet (KI) have been working with their counterparts at MUHAS for the past 30 years. During this period, more than 30 doctoral students from MUHAS have benefited from this collaboration, many of whom have successfully defended PhD and graduated thanks to this Sida-funded collaboration.

Collaboration with MUHAS

United Kingdom

As part of KI’s overarching collaborations the British universities, KI has supported three doctoral programmes funded by the British Medical Research Council (MRC). The MRC DPT Precision Medicine Programme and ECAT Wellcome Trust Clinical PhD programme and The University of Edinburgh and MRC MultiSci - Multidisciplinary Science in Health Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) at Imperial College London. 

Collaboration in the United Kingdom

Uganda

Collaboration within doctoral education is part of the long standing partnership with Makerere University.

Collaboration with Uganda

USA

The KI-NIH Neuroscience Program provides the possibility for doctoral students, from either the United States or Sweden, to divide their training for a doctoral degree between the two participating Institutes.

Collaboration with NIH 

The Rockefeller University offers doctoral and postdoctoral education, and Karolinska Institutet has an extensive cooperation agreement with the Rockefeller University. The agreement covers Nicholson Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme and Nicholson Exchange Programme for Research, Education, Technical and Resource Staff.

Collaboration with the Rockefeller University

Erasmus+

As a doctoral student you can participate in a student exchange or a teacher exchange in a European country.

Currently, only a few of KI:s Erasmus+ agreements allow student exchange on a doctoral level. For information please contact Kristina Jesinkey, central Erasmus coordinator. However, signing new agreements is an easy process if the participating institutions are interested in supporting an exchange. If you are interested in participating in a doctoral student exchange, the same conditions apply, including the size of the grant, as for student exchange on Bachelor's and Master's level. However, it is possible to combine the Erasmus+ grant with other types of grants, i.e. travel grants.

You can also do a traineeship in a European country where the same conditions as for students on Bachelor's and Master's level apply as well. Please note: the doctoral student exchange must be at least three consecutive months long and an interinstitutional agreement must be signed.

For a traineeship no agreement needs to be signed, and the minimum stay is 60 consecutive days. For more information, please email Kristina Jesinkey

Erasmus+ programme

Eurolife

As a doctoral student, you can participate in a Eurolife exchange and spend a research period at another Eurolife member institution. Eurolife is a network of nine prestigious academic institutions across Europe, that promotes and facilitates collaborative research, joint postgraduate training and education, the exchange of researchers, research and master students and the building of joint research projects within the field of Biomedicine and Medicine.

Apart from Karolinska Institutet the other participating Eurolife institutions are Leiden University Medical Center (The Netherlands), Medical University of Innsbruck (Austria), Universitat de Barcelona (Spain), University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), University Medical Center Göttingen (Germany), University of Strasbourg (France), Trinity College of Dublin (Ireland) and Semmelweis University (Hungary).

If needed, Erasmus+ agreements can be signed in order to receive Erasmus+ grants, which can be combined with other types of grants, i.e. travel grants. For more information, please contact Anna Dahlerus.

Eurolife programme

NeurotechEU

The European University of Brain and Technology - NeurotechEU is an alliance between eight European universities with the goal to build a trans-European network of excellence in brain research and technologies to increase the competitiveness of European education, research, economy and society.

Apart from Karolinska Institutet the other participating Neurotech institutions are

  • Radboud Universiteit (Netherlands)
  • Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (Spain)
  • Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Germany)
  • Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (Turkey)
  • Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie „Iuliu Hațieganu” din Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
  • Debreceni Egyetem (Hungary)
  • University of Lille (France)

NorDoc

Karolinska Institutet is a member of the network NorDoc (Nordic Doctoral Training in Health Sciences) that has the aim to provide doctoral students at the partner universities free access to courses within each university.  NorDoc doctoral students can participate in the courses at KI in the admission category  for doctoral students at other universities. General courses are typically not available for doctoral students in this admission category.

KI doctoral students participating in NorDoc courses at the partner universities may apply for credit transfer at their department at KI if the course chosen is part of (or equivalent to courses included in) the individual study plan.

NorDoc courses