PhD Introduction Course, 24 - 27 November 2026 (mandatory)

PhD Introduction Course, 24 – 27 November 2026 (mandatory)

Please note: The PhD Introduction Course is exclusively offered to PhD students enrolled at the CBS PhD School.

The course is mandatory for all new PhD students enrolled at CBS from 1 January 2024 onwards and includes sessions on PhD supervision, Research Ethics and Integrity, Well-being, and an introduction to Research Data Management (RDM). The course also provides an introduction to the PhD programme, the CBS PhD School, and key aspects of your PhD journey at CBS.

PhD Introduction Course will take place from 24–27 November 2026. Please make sure to reserve these dates in your calendar.

PhD students employed at CBS will receive Prophix hours for their participation in the course.

We look forward to welcoming all new PhD students to the course!

Program

24 November 2026, 09:15 – 13:45

Workshop: Making supervision work for you

Faculty:
Ditte-Marie From, Ass. Prof./PhD., Academic Coaching

Ditte-Marie From holds a PhD in health education and is a former associate professor in health and society with over sixteen years of teaching experience. Her research focuses on social and mental well-being in academia and how early-career researchers can foster the positive development of their research competencies. She teaches and works as a coach for PhD students and supervisors, with a focus on academic collaboration and creating productive and supportive research environments.

Purpose: To learn practical tools for proactively managing your supervisors and to share experiences with peers on navigating the supervisory process

Format: The workshop is hands-on based, and it includes lectures, exercises, and plenum discussions. 

Are you in the beginning of your PhD (first year) and do you want to learn practical tools for how to make the best out of your supervision? Then this workshop is for you! Research shows that successful PhD students display the ability to benefit from the strengths of their individual supervisors and use it to their advantage. In this workshop, you will learn practical tools to:

•    Contribute to building a good work relationship
•    Navigate between several supervisors (main and co-supervisors)
•    Communicate with your supervisors in a professional way
•    Get the feedback you need to progress efficiently

Regardless of whether you find it easy to work with your supervisor(s) or not, the workshop is relevant because it offers concrete tips and tricks for proactively managing your supervisors. 

Is it worth spending three hours on this workshop? Yes, because:
•    Research shows that the relationship between PhD students and supervisors greatly influences the efficiency and creativity of the PhD study. Therefore, it is crucial for students to navigate the supervisory process
•    The workshop is a means of making your PhD study more efficient, and therefore the workshop is not an extra time-consuming event 
•    It offers a room for sharing experiences and for getting inspiration from peers.

25 October 2025, 09:00 - 13:45

Research Ethics and Integrity 

Faculty:
Alan Irwin, Professor, Department of Organization

Overall aim
To introduce CBS PhDs to the basic concepts, principles and practical issues of research ethics and research integrity.

Content
Introduction and background (why do CBS researchers need to consider research ethics and integrity?); The Danish code of conduct and related statements (what do you need to know?); Scenarios (what does all this mean in practice?); Discussion and reflection (how does this relate to my own research?); Lessons learnt (what do I take away?).

Lecture plan
This will be a half-day session led by Alan Irwin (with possible participation from other colleagues). It is planned to run twice a year in order to accommodate all students. Topics covered will include: research integrity, research misconduct, authorship and acknowledgement, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, research ethics, guidelines and good practices, informed consent.

Teaching style:
Lecture/class discussion/small group exercises

Learning Objectives
This short course will give all PhD candidates a basic understanding of the issues of research ethics and integrity which are directly relevant to their own doctoral research and which they might encounter in their professional development.

Course literature
All students should have read the Danish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity before attending the course.  

Suggested readings

British Sociological Association (March 2002) Statement of ethical practice Mark Israel (ed) (2014) Research Ethics and Integrity for Social Scientists: beyond regulatory compliance. Sage.
Singapore Statement on Research Integrity (2010)

26 November 2026, 09:00 – 16:00

Working with (y)our well-being: stress and relational capabilities in PhD life

Faculty:
Pernille Steen Pedersen, BHL
Esben Halkier, BHL

Content

PhD life is often described as intellectually stimulating, flexible, and full of opportunity. But it is also a period marked by high expectations, uncertain career paths, and intense forms of evaluation. Many PhD fellows experience pressure not only from workload, but from comparison, self-doubt, and the difficulty of navigating feedback, supervision, and collaboration in an environment where the stakes can feel very high.

Conversations about stress in academia often focus on individual coping strategies: how to optimize your time, manage your stress, or become more resilient. While these tools can be useful, they rarely address a central reality of academic life: well-being is deeply relational.

This workshop takes a different starting point. Rather than just asking how the individual can “fix” stress, we explore how well-being is shaped in relationships, expectations and in feedback cultures, and how developing relational capabilities can help PhD fellows navigate these dynamics more constructively.

Drawing on research from CBS Well-being Lab, the workshop introduces concepts such as shame and reaction patterns. Participants will work with real-life dilemmas from the PhD context and explore how different reaction patterns influence collaboration, supervision, and the experience of academic evaluation.

The aim is to develop a language and a set of relational skills for working with the pressure that PhD fellows likely experience in academic life.

The workshop combines research-based insights with practical exercises and dialogue. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of how pressure operates in a competitive environment and with tools for navigating feedback, expectations, and collaboration in ways that support both professional development and well-being.

Learning objectives:

Participants will gain:

• A deeper understanding of how pressure, comparison and evaluation shape the PhD experience
• Insight into different reaction patterns under pressure – both their own and others’
• A language for navigating feedback, supervision and collaboration
• Tools for turning dialogue about well-being into a professional capability rather than a private concern
• Opportunities to reflect on real dilemmas from the PhD context

27 November 2026, 10:00 – 12:00

Introduction to RDM for PhD Students

Faculty
Mareike Buss, Specialkonsulent/Senior advisor, Libray, CBS

Prerequisites

IMPORTANT - All students must complete the online course “Introduction to Research Data Management" (modules 1–3) available in Canvas (approx. 1.5–2 hours) and submit three short assignments prior to attending the course.

The deadline for submission of the assignments is Monday, 23 November 2026.

Furthermore, it is expected that all students have read the Danish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity before attending the course.

Aim 
To introduce CBS PhD students to the basic concepts, principles and practices of research data management (RDM).

Content
This course gives an overview of relevant RDM topics and best practice in the field. It is set up as a blended learning course with 1.5 - 2 hours of online self-study and 2 hours of classroom learning. The students will be generally introduced to key RDM concepts and ideas by taking the online course “Introduction to Research Data Management (modules 1-3)” (ca. 1.5 hour).

The classroom learning session will be tailored to the needs of the PhD-students that have registered for the course. It will comprise a Q&A follow up session to the self-study, discussion of concrete examples and RDM issues, and hands-on exercises selected for the group of students.

Overview of course contents: 

• CBS RDM policy
• Good RDM practice throughout the research data lifecycle (including how to write a data management plan and related tools)
• The FAIR principles
• RDM services and infrastructure at CBS (among others: storage, HPC tools and resources, data publishing, data preservation)

Teaching Style
Blended-learning course with online self-study and classroom learning with lecture elements, class discussion and small group exercises.

Learning Objectives
This course gives PhD candidates an understanding of good RDM practice and how it is part of the methodological toolkit of every researcher.

Course Literature
Danish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity

If you have any question to the above please contact Blazenka Kvistbo, bbk.research@cbs.dk