Researchers, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students are all potential supervisors for educational projects. Typically, PhD students can participate in the supervision of master students and research trainees, while postdocs are encouraged to supervise at all levels, including PhD students. In both cases, these young supervisors should be paired with established researchers that have prior experience with scientific supervision. Given Simula’s close connection to the University of Oslo (UiO), these researchers will often have the formal academic affiliation needed to fulfil the university’s regulations for supervision.

Supervising students and trainees 

The current regulations for the master and PhD degrees at UiO define the basis for student supervision at Simula. In addition to the requirements stated in these documents, the supervisors are expected to support the strategic and cultural characteristics of Simula. That is, the supervisor is responsible for guiding the student’s work in directions that agree with the scientific goals of the relevant department and research group. The student should be thoroughly rooted in the same environment, and should, in particular for the PhD students, be co-located and fully integrated with the research team. When supervising students for a degree, it is the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that the conducted work meets the required level of quality and novelty. Still, at the same time, he is responsible for keeping the plans and the actual work at a reasonable ambition level, such that the qualifications for the relevant degree can be achieved on time. Obviously, the time constraints can be in conflict with the quest for high-impact results, and sober assessments may be necessary to fulfil the necessary balance of the quality to time ratio.

The supervision of a research trainee will often resemble the guiding of a PhD student. However, the supervisor should not forget that the main purpose of the trainee period is to conclude on whether the candidate should continue as a PhD student. As part of this bilateral evaluation, it is expected that the trainee is offered varied research-oriented work tasks, and that proper measures are used to explain the relevance and motivation of the technically focused research. One possible way to expose this aspect can be to place the trainee in a potential user community, whether that is in industry, academia, or the public sector. First-hand observations of what the real issues and problems are will often trigger a deeper interest in the research challenges, and also encourage the innovative line of the work.

As for any student-supervisor relationship, it is important to establish a common basis. It is equally important to regularly revisit the parties’ understanding of this basis, leading to confirmation and refinement of the problem definition and the expected route to a valid solution.  It is equally important to verify a mutual understanding of what is expected from the student and from the supervisor. These elements are continuously monitored through SSRI’s employment dialogues. If any of the parties feel that there is a gap growing between student and supervisor, SSRI’s administration should be called upon as a neutral discussion partner. In cases of an established conflict, SSRI will intervene and suggest operative measures to resurrect, and in extreme cases, terminate the relationship in question. Such measures may include a reconfiguration of the supervisor team, or a relocation of the student to another group.

There are no standardised requirements for the supervision of students at Simula, but there are expectations embedded in the company culture. Like any other aspect of Simula’s work, one expects a high scientific and professional quality. The details of how the supervision is conducted and the frequency of formal meetings with the student will differ between departments, groups, and even between individual supervisors. However, every supervisor is expected to have an up-to-date understanding of what the student is doing and his rate of progression. In periods where it is impractical to meet physically, for instance due to travelling, the supervisor and the student must find alternative ways of contact, such as email, phone, or internet chat. It is the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that the student’s research keeps a profile that one can expect to fulfil the academic requirements for the targeted degree.

When the student’s work culminates in the production of scientific papers and reports, the supervisor plays an important role in teaching the principles of scientific publication as they apply in the relevant research field. Correct and efficient communication of research is a skill that needs to be developed, both in theory and practice, and is a highly prioritised goal for the education of SSRI’s students. As for all other types of Simula publications, the official guidelines for publications must be followed. In most cases, it is natural that the supervisors are co-authors of the student’s papers. However, such co-authorship must be based on real contributions to the conducted research and the documentation of the results.

In cases where there are several supervisors involved, such as required for a PhD student, it is expected that the principal supervisor plays a special role. If there are disagreements between the supervisors, for instance regarding the direction of the research, the principal supervisors should take the lead and ensure that all supervisors and the student reach an agreement. If such agreement can not be achieved, SSRI’s administration should be informed. If necessary, SSRI will get involved to advise on how the conflict should be resolved.

Supervising postdoctoral fellows 

Postdoctoral fellows are expected to be trained researchers, capable of directing their own work. Therefore, postdocs are not supervised in the same sense as master and PhD students. Instead, the supervision of postdocs is comparable to the supervision that a project leader imposes on all members of his project group. Usually, the project leader for the research group hosting the postdoc will act as a supervisor.

In addition to the scientific aspect, persons supervising the work of a postdoctoral fellow should also realise the importance of conveying other types of experience and values that can contribute to the postdoctoral fellow’s training. In particular, SSRI encourages actions that enrich the postdoc’s professional and personal development. For instance, the supervisor should demonstrate relevant aspects of research management through discussions, conversations and practice. If practically possible, postdoctoral fellows should be encouraged to participate in supervision of students, writing of research proposals, etc. One should also encourage the participation in the courses that SSRI arranges, and challenge the postdoc to implement the concepts and ideas from these courses in the ongoing work.

Research collaboration with external partners

Given Simula’s dedication to conducting research that has a large potential for applications in society, it is important to keep a close contact with those who “own” the relevant applications. Although Simula has internationally leading expertise in our selected fields, we are seldom in possession of the real problems that our methods and software can potentially solve. The experts on the problems are usually found in other research groups, in industry, or in public institutions such as hospitals. Experience shows that our research needs input from these experts. Moreover, to have real impact on the application field, our solutions and technology must be used by the same experts and their peers.

Interacting with a user community

Supervisors in SSRI should actively look for opportunities to anchor their students’ work in relevant user communities. Cross-disciplinary collaboration with other research groups can be a challenge, requiring patience and skills from both parties in order to establish a common platform for efficient communication, and for detecting the actual problem that should be addressed. Collaboration with industrial companies shares these characteristics, but also adds other potential hurdles since time and money becomes a more visible factor. It is therefore necessary to design a way of interacting with such partners that ensures an efficient and professional collaboration, and which prepares for practical issues that might arise later. It should be noted that the following advice on principles for collaboration with industry can also be applied to academic collaboration, especially when addressing research groups that are very close to applications that can have a commercial future.

The Simula personnel that will be directly involved in the collaboration, such as trainees, PhD students or postdocs, should spend time in the user community. Therefore, solutions that split the work time between Simula’s site and the offices of the partner are encouraged. For this to work, the external partner must provide suitable office space and working conditions for the on-site periods. It is often tempting to think that it is sufficient to meet with the application partner to define the problem, return to the desk and work out the solution, which then is communicated to the user at the end. This type of collaboration will seldom lead to any impact on research. Frequent contact and discussion is needed to calibrate the proposed solution with the real problem. Often, the application specialist will not be able to communicate the whole picture up-front, because there are basic truths in the field that his peers would automatically assert, but you will fail to see. Even if you are told the whole story, there will be crucial elements that you miss out on, just because of the volume of information that you receive. Finally, even when you are working on technical aspects that are not easily discussed with an application-oriented partner, your or your student’s physical presence in the external group will improve communication and help build personal relationships.

Intellectual property and confidentiality

For any collaboration that one regards as having a future commercial value, it is important to define how one should handle the questions related to intellectual property. This statement does not imply that one has to define all details and divide the rights to the work a priori. It is more important to agree on the principles that such discussions will follow after the results become available. In these discussions one should also agree on the principles of publication. As a researcher, you will have a need for publishing your work, and the student will need to gain the merits for his degree. Your collaborator may have other motives, and would in some cases prefer to keep part of the work private. Existing experience shows that scientific publication is often possible to do, while still keeping the privacy of your partner. For instance, you may want to publish the technical aspects of your solution, while the real concern of an industrial partner may be the results from business-critical applications of your method. Such differences of interest are often easily resolved by using synthetic test cases or real data sets that are less sensitive.

The example above illustrates also the potential need for signing non-disclosure agreements with your partners to prevent misuse of confidential information. If your entry ticket to the collaboration involves competence or software that you have not yet officially taken ownership of in terms of publication or other types of protection, it should also be considered if your partner should sign a non-disclosure agreement that guards your and Simula’s interests.

When publishing a paper based on collaborative work, it is natural to include co-authors from the partner group as long as the principles of the Simula publishing guidelines are applied. Even in cases where the collaborator is not primarily interested in research, but rather in the results thereof, co-authorship is a nice gesture that will help building good relations.

Whenever you enter a collaboration that will involve regulations of the intellectual property, you will need to consult your head of department. Please see Simula’s Personnel Guidelines for further details.

Benefits and commitments

When addressing industrial companies with the goal of securing collaboration, possibly involving funding of positions, you should consider the following three arguments closely: (1) you and Simula can offer competence that is not easily accessible to the company; (2) the work done by the students and you represents a low risk for the company, but may very well have a significant potential; (3) the students educated through the collaborative projects will be attractive candidates for employment in the company.

While the company must commit to making the relevant information and problem-specific competence available to you and the students, Simula must commit to providing students and supervisors of superior quality.

The supervisor's checklist

Useful resources

SSRI’s information for supervisors

Simula’s Personnel Guidelines

Simula Publication Guidelines