Sweden

In many ways, PhD programmes in Sweden are similar to the Dutch and German model, but there are some differences applicants should be aware of.

Note that the following is accurate for academic PhD students. In addition, some departments allow for industrial PhD students, for which much of the below will not be accurate. However, I have found that industrial PhD positions are normally not "offered" to outsiders, but specifically created for individuals, so these positions are probably less interesting to the average reader of this post.

Status of PhD Candidates

PhD students in Sweden have a dual status - they are students with all rights and obligations that come with that status, but they are also full-time employees of the university. Conducting research towards a PhD is explicitly one of the listed tasks of the job "PhD student", and it is normal / expected that the research will be conducted during work hours.

However, "doing research" is not the only job of a student - in addition, like any employee, a PhD student may be asked to do other work for their employer within reason, including attending meetings, helping with teaching, or doing administrative work. This can lead to some friction, and in practice university regulations and Swedish law restricts departments from burdening PhD students with too much distractions (to what extent these regulations are followed surely differs from department to department).

Like in the Netherlands, the job "PhD student" comes with a full salary (fixed through union bargaining), and full employee benefits, including rather generous paid time off. The salary is below comparable industry positions, but not entirely terrible (though opinions on this naturally vary).

Tasks

As a PhD student, you normally have three big tasks:

• Research (working towards your PhD)
• Teaching (working as a TA for courses that are assigned to you, and/or supervising thesis projects)
• Coursework (your own course-based studies, which in Sweden is fairly substantial)

In my Computer Science department, the normal expected distribution is the that you spend about 20% of your time teaching, 20% of your time doing courses, and 60% of your time doing research for 5 years.

Students often, but not always, work as TAs for members of their advisory team (see below). Especially in larger groups students are often assigned rather freely to courses depending on needs, and you may easily have a different "boss" when you TA than during your research.

Advisory Model

Sweden has a different PhD advisory model than most places. Students in Sweden are assigned an entire "supervision team", consisting of:

• Main supervisor (typically the professor who acquired the funding)
• Secondary supervisor (main and second supervisor are typically working with the student, publishing papers with them and coaching them towards successful completion)
• Examiner (mostly responsible for evaluation of progress, signing off coursework, etc.; whereas supervisors are normally supposed to be a student's allies and advocates, an examiner is responsible for quality control and evaluation, and typically is not directly involved in the student's research)
• PhD school representative (ensuring that the other three people do their job, ensuring that regulations are being followed, etc.)

The exact "job" of each member of this team is different from group to group and student to student - in some cases, examiners are completely hands-off, in other cases they expect to sign off on all research a student plans to do (and even co-author papers with the student). In some cases the secondary supervisor is a postdoc of the main supervisor (and then in practice acts as the first contact point for the student), in some cases it's a more experienced professor mostly mentoring the main supervisor (but rarely talking to the student directly).

In theory, the model is supposed to provide redundancy and allow students to complete even if they have conflicts with their main supervisor. In practice, the model can lead to difficulties since students can find themselves in a situation where they need to satisfy multiple stakeholders (who don't always have the same priorities, expectations, and needs).

Applying

There is in practice no "applying to a PhD school" in Sweden. Positions are advertised through the university job portal, recruiting tends to follow the same standards that are also being used for other university staff, and admittance to the PhD school comes automatically with being offered a job.

Cold-emailing professors may make a limited amount of sense, but only to inquire if there are currently openings or if openings are likely to appear in the near future. By and large, universities are not able to hire anybody outside of pre-approved hiring procedures.

There are no hiring rounds, positions are advertised one-by-one and on a rolling basis, whenever funding and approval for a hiring becomes available.

As in most places in Europe, a master's degree is a hard requirement. Exceptions can, to the best of my knowledge, not be granted.

There is basically no standardisation of how the application and selection procedure is organised - some groups make decisions quickly based on CVs and a single round of Zoom interviews, whereas other groups run candidates through a gauntlet of multiple rounds of remote or on-site interviews, writing samples, and trial tasks. However, there are no application fees.

Requirements

PhD candidates require a relevant master's degree and typically need to be fluent in English. Swedish is, at least in STEM, generally not required, and there tends to be no requirement to ever learn Swedish.

Aside from that, the job profile ("kravprofil") will list what other competencies are required or recommended. How undergrad grades, prior experience, writing samples, etc. are weighted will depend heavily on the professor doing the selection, and very little can be said in general about this.

This means that even "unusual" candidates have a chance to be selected, if they happen to run into the right kind of professor with the right kind of requirements.

Acceptance

"Acceptance" is generally communicated rather informally, via telephone or through a short "congratulations" email. There are no formal offer letters like in other countries. However, Swedish universities (at least research-intensive ones) are used to applicants from outside the European Union, and should be able to quickly produce the documentation necessary to apply for a student visa (despite being full-time employees, PhD students count as "students" in front of the migration office, and hence a student visa is required rather than a work permit - this does not prevent employment by the university).

Note that by law universities can only actually sign a contract with students who are physically in Sweden. International students get a written "contract promise" which is sufficient for a visa, but EU applications basically only get an email and get informed to move to Sweden and then get their contract. This often feels informal and weird to candidates, but is indeed the intended practice.

It's difficult to say how long the procedure takes because it depends heavily on the professor doing the hiring, but in general the process is rather fast-moving - acceptance and rejection notices are typically sent out reasonably quickly (or, at least, most professors are fairly transparent with where the process currently is).

Funding

Positions in Sweden are fully funded by Swedish law. Universities are not able to offer "part-time" positions, or accept self-funded students (the only exception are industrial PhD students, where somebody else still needs to provide full-time funding).

Notably, universities are required to provide funding at least for the "normal" duration of a PhD. This is typically 4 years, but can be defined differently in different departments. For instance, in my Computer Science department, normal PhD time is 5 years (including 20% teaching obligations). It is in principle possible to be let go as a student for performance reasons, but in practice this barely ever seems to happen (at least not in my department). You can safely assume that if you get a PhD position, you will be fully funded as long as stay within a reasonable PhD duration.

The "Licentiate" Degree

Some Swedish universities still award a special degree (the "licentiate") as a sort of halfway point during a PhD study. The procedure for getting a licentiate is similar to the actual PhD - a thesis (typically a "stapler thesis") needs to be written, presented, and defended. The licentiate is an academic degree, but it is rarely ever mentioned if the candidate then goes on to complete their PhD. However, it is a natural "escape point" if the studies are not going ideally (similar to "exiting with a master's" in the US). Specific requirements for a licentiate degree vary, but normally account for about half a PhD. Consequently, students often apply for their licentiate some time in the third year of their program. Research that is part of the licentiate degree can then be re-used in the PhD dissertation.

It's normally not possible to start a study with the immediate goal to only study towards a licentiate.