Graduate School’s 10th anniversary ceremony – insights into the history, presence and future of doctoral training

Ceremony was opened by the current Dean of the Graduate School Harri Oinas-Kukkonen. Director Erja Heikkinen from Ministry of Education and Culture spoke about doctoral educations history and future perspectives in Finland.

Vice Principal of Research Taina Pihlajaniemi introduced the phases of developing the Graduate School at its early stages. After this Vice Principal of Education Tapio Koivu gave insights into the future of the Graduate School in his speech.

Chair of Doctoral Researchers’ Section (DRS) Namrata Baruah gave greetings from previous chairs of DRS and presented key achievements of the UniOGS and DRS. In the last speech of the ceremony the current Vice Dean of the Graduate School Jouko Miettunen presented highlights of a survey to doctoral researchers from the year 2020.

At the ceremony exemplary doctoral theses were awarded for each doctoral programme. Awardees were PhD Tuomo Alhojärvi from Human Sciences programme, PhD Vahid Farrahi from Health and Biosciences programme, PhD Jere Kekkonen from Information and Electrical Engineering programme and PhD Otto Mankinen from Technical and Nature Sciences programme.

Over the years many people have contributed to the development and function of the Graduate School. At the ceremony few key persons were recognized for their input. Long-term teacher of ”Scientific Research and Ethics”-course Jarmo Pulkkinen has set the benchmark for ethics for all our PhD researchers with his teaching. Anthony Heape has been part of the Graduate School from the first steps until recent years and has been an important person in developing the doctoral training. Marita Lumijärvi was recognized for carrying out many practical functions of the Graduate School for a long period of time.

The Graduate School wants to warmly thank all those who have participated in the development of doctoral training over the past decade!