Teaching Commitments at the Department of Neuroscience
The Department of Neuroscience has an extensive commitment in education with an involvement in many educational programmes. In line with Karolinska Institutet's strategy, which has as goal to ensure a strong interaction between research and education, it is essential that the department ensures a broad and active participation of researchers, from doctoral students to professors, in different teaching activities.
Teaching is also an important merit for higher academic positions. It is essential that all teaching duties within the department are distributed based on educational profile and expertise.
Teaching by professors and university lecturers
All professors are encouraged to take part in the education and will be asked to take on suitable teaching commitments. Professors at the department are requested to teach a minimum of ten hours per year.
In addition, the department depends on extensive teaching commitments by certain professors, as well as by the university lecturers and adjunct positions to which specific teaching commitments are set for each individual position.
The contribution to teaching with regard to quantity and quality (e.g. as assessed by course evaluations) will be considered when salary levels are set.
Unpaid teaching by researchers and postdocs with salaries from non-departmental sources
An important part of the teaching in the department is conducted voluntarily by researchers (assistant professors, associate professors, postdocs) who do not receive their salary from the department. For this group the merit value for higher academic positions and docent qualification is of particular importance.
Paid teaching
Certain teaching commitments are difficult to fulfill under the above criteria. In these cases, the department can pay a compensation as an amount to the teacher´s research account or, in exceptional cases, as an honorarium. Paid teaching needs to be limited and must be approved by the director of education, i.e. GUA (= grundutbildningsansvarig).
Teaching by Doctoral students
PhD students interested and talented in teaching are encouraged to volunteer for teaching commitments.Teaching gives Ladok points (3 credit points/80 teaching points) to the PhD student. Teaching is also an important merit for many postdoctoral positions.
To help the PhD students during their teaching activities, the department will provide them with a free copy of the course book (Neuroscience by Purves et al., 6th edition).