1. Management
The responsibility for strategic management of the Neuro-Innovation DP lies with the Steering Committee and the Project Coordinators. The Programme Manager handles the operational and administrative management, while the Impact Manager oversees activities such as training, communication, dissemination, and impact.
The Steering Committee makes final decisions regarding the recruitment of Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs). It also monitors the progress of the programme and the ESRs, and addresses major management, supervision and ethical issues. The Steering Committee is chaired by the academic rector of the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), who leads all PhD training at the university. Committee members include deans who nominates the ESRs, UEF Director of HR and UEF Director of Research and also two industry experts and one representative of the ESRs.
The Doctoral Studies Group (DSG) supports, monitors, and evaluates the progress of ESRs, supervision and training, gender equality and non-discrimination, career plans and IPR issues, communication and dissemination, and risk management. In addition to the Programme Coordinators and the Impact Manager, members include the Coordinator of UEF Doctoral School, supervisors of the ESRs, one industry expert, and one ESR representative.
Each ESR has a Doctoral Committee comprising a primary supervisor, who is an expert in the ESR's field of study, a secondary supervisor, and up to three co-supervisors, who provide supervision and support through regular meetings. The primary supervisor is responsible for supervising the ESR's doctoral training and research project, providing regular feedback on seminar presentations and scientific article writing. The supervisors follow standardized supervision and monitoring guidelines for ESRs. The progress of each ESR is monitored and assessed twice a year by the SC and the DSG. Additionally, each ESR is a member of the primary supervisor's research group, where day-to-day support for PhD projects and training is provided.
2. Selection and evaluation
The recruitment process has targeted talented and highly motivated students from all over the world. Special attention was given to female and minority scientists, candidates from countries without strong PhD programs, and those from the new EU member states. The selection of ESRs followed open, merit-based, transparent, impartial, and equitable procedures. The recruitment of 14 ESRs was conducted through four calls, each following identical processes.
3. Dissemination of the Programme and its Calls
For communication and dissemination purposes, the DP uses the Neuro-Innovation webpage (www.sites.uef.fi/neuro-innovation/) and various social media channels such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/uef-neuro-innovation) Twitter (www.twitter.com/UEFNeuroInno) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/UEFneuroinno). For marketing the four calls of all these and several additional channels were used.
The ESRs use their own social media accounts to communicate about the programme and to disseminate their research findings. ESRs have attended numerous conferences, seminars and workshops during the DP. All research publications in the programme are open access.
4. Training and career development
The Neuro-Innovation DP represents a pioneering effort at UEF to integrate the university's world-class neuroscience with top-level innovation management research, social and legal sciences, data science, and applied physics. This integration fosters unique interdisciplinary competence that contributes to brain health innovation in Europe and beyond, by training future leaders in this field of research and practice. The DP offers ESRs research training specifically tailored to their chosen fields of study. Furthermore, ESRS are equipped with transferable skills and capabilities necessary to navigate changing career paths following their initial researcher training. ESRs receive training and support for career development, and they are encouraged to participate in at least one visit or secondment to another organization.
5. Ethics
The Neuro-Innovation DP upholds ethical principles throughout all its activities, starting from the launch of the call, evaluation, recruitment, training, supervision, research conduct, management, and graduation. The Steering Committee bears the responsibility of ensuring ethical compliance in each project, and the program is equipped with its own Ethics Committee.
ESRs are expected to uphold fundamental ethical principles, scientific practices, and national and international regulations concerning ethical issues in research. Additionally, they are required to include a research ethics course in their curriculum.
