Roles and Responsibilities of PhD Student Representatives

The ED council comprises 22 members, including 4 doctoral student representatives. Each doctoral student representative has a substitute. The geographical distribution of doctoral student representatives defined in the internal regulations covers the whole of Normandy. It is desirable that they represent the main fields of the ED.

The role of the elected doctoral students is to:

• • representing doctoral students on councils (Doctoral School and College of Doctoral Schools),
  • ensure the integration of new doctoral students,
  • report on the issues encountered by doctoral students during their thesis (pressure, questioning, lack of information, etc.),
  • participate in organising the doctoral school’s doctoral students’ day, once a year,
  • inform doctoral students of the decisions taken at the council meeting,
  • be prepared to seek information from the ED, but also from your department or the INSPE, in order to answer questions from doctoral students, for example about teaching opportunities,
  • have the opportunity to test training courses before they are offered to all doctoral students

Deputies are invited to all council meetings. They may only participate in votes if their incumbent is not present.

When travel is necessary in the course of their duties, expenses are covered by the ED.

Elected doctoral students participate in:

• ED board meetings: 4 per year on average, average duration 2 hours, with one face-to-face meeting per year in June,
• Enlarged bureau meetings on Mondays at 11:30 a.m.: 5-6 meetings per year, including one before each council meeting. The extended bureau is composed of the management team, the ED, the administrative team and the elected doctoral students and their deputies. It is a forum for discussion on the functioning of the ED,
• CED (College of Doctoral Schools) meetings, 3 to 5 per year