Concept and objectives of the Graduate School
The Graduate School in Electrical Energy Engineering educates doctors and generates new, relevant information for the needs of the manufacturing industry, electricity distribution companies and other businesses in the field of electrical engineering, as well as for research and education institutions. The Graduate School is the most central network organization in the Finnish innovation system in electrical engineering.
The studies and research work of the postgraduate students are guided so that they will attain skills and abilities to operate in the employ of business, as independent entrepreneurs, or as supervisors of research activities in universities. For graduated doctors, the Graduate School offers an opportunity to advance their postdoctoral career. The Graduate School provides postgraduate students a contact network, guidance for their research work, financial resources and working environment, in average ten postgraduate courses every year, and seminars on topics related to researcher career development. Special themes in the postgraduate education are entrepreneurship and internationality.
Application for admission as a postgraduate student
Doctoral students, who have a higher university degree (usually in the field of electrical engineering) and who are ready to commit themselves to target-oriented, successful studies and research work, may be granted admission to the Graduate School. Each postgraduate student shall have a study and research plan agreed with the supervisor of the studies. All the postgraduate students, who work full-time in the units of the Graduate School and in the industry and who commit themselves to target-oriented postgraduate work, participate in the postgraduate education.
Application for admission as a postgraduate student starts with negotiations with the supervising professor on the content of the postgraduate studies and the doctoral dissertation research. In Finland, students typically conduct their postgraduate studies in the unit in which they completed their university degree. It is, however, possible to change to another unit of the Graduate School to conduct postgraduate studies there.
Operation of the Graduate School
The Graduate School in Electrical Energy Engineering is a network organization, the most visible activities of which involve the organization of postgraduate courses and the annual summer seminar. In the GSEEE, there are doctoral students, whose postgraduate studies are funded by a unit of the Graduate School itself, from various research projects conducted in cooperation with the industry, Tekes (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) and the Academy of Finland, or who hold a doctoral student position funded by the Ministry of Education.
Every year, the Graduate School selects new doctoral students to the doctoral student positions funded by the Ministry of Education. Application for these positions usually takes place in October. The postgraduate students, who have been awarded a doctoral student position, are employed as doctoral students in the units of the Graduate School in Lappeenranta University of Technology, Helsinki University of Technology, Tampere University of Technology, or in the University of Vaasa.
The Graduate Schools supports the doctoral students’ participation in postgraduate courses organized by other units of the Graduate School by contributing to travel, accommodation and participation expenses.
A target of the Graduate School is that each doctoral student works from one to twelve months in an international research unit. The Graduate School contributes to the expenses related to such visits.