The report in brief
The survey is based on responses from 1500 doctoral students at nine Swedish universities. The results show that the doctoral students' work environment is under pressure. One in three doctoral students works overtime several days a week, the same number have work-related sleep problems at least once a week, and six out of ten often experience stress due to their work. Women experience a worse work environment.
The survey also shows widespread problems with harassment and discrimination. As many as 14 percent of women report having been subjected to harassment or discrimination based on gender. If you add up all the grounds for discrimination, 22 percent of women and 11 percent of men have been victimized during their doctoral studies. What is also serious is that a large majority choose not to report, and among those who did, only a quarter felt that they were taken seriously.
Doctoral students whose funding has run out often report significantly worse results than average. This also varies by research field. Doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences, and in natural sciences and technology, stand out in particular with worse results than average.