What is SOFOSKO?

If you are admitted, you will during the first summer take a research-oriented lecture course of approximately 2 weeks. The course starts immediately after the regular spring semester and ends before Midsummer. After the introductory course, you spend 4 weeks with your specific research project. This period can be scheduled any time during the summer when it suits you and your supervisor.

The second summer you work full time with the project for 6 weeks. Medical students can choose to work another 6 weeks with the same project during a third summer.

You cannot choose different supervisors or projects for the different summers.

SOFOSKO ends in the autumn after the second or third summer. The various projects are reported in written form and as oral presentations during evening seminars with oppositions once a week for about 2 months.

Application

You apply through a link on SOFOSKO's homepage. The application period opens in February and the last application date is 1 March.

PROJEcT List

You can find a list of available projects in the Project List. The list is updated for each year's application round. If you are already active in a project or has agreed with a supervisor beforehand, you can also apply with a project that is not in the list.

Credits

• SOFOSKO during two summers renders 22.5 credits.
• If you are a medical student and take SOFOSKO for three summers, you get 30 credits.

Financing

Students admitted to SOFOSKO receive SEK 10,000 per summer for two years as a scholarship.

BAcKGRoUND

For many years, the international significance of Swedish medical research was much greater than can be expected given the country's modest population size. During this great time in medicine, even the most prominent clinical researchers usually had a preclinical doctoral education.

In recent years, the interest in preclinical research, especially among medical students, has steadily declined. The PhD student positions have increasingly been occupied by students with other first cycle education than those given at the preclinical institutions. This is a situation that in the long term threatens to distance the preclinical institutions from the clinic. In order to ensure a fruitful interaction between the preclinical and clinical subjects in terms of research and teaching, it is important to reverse the trend and increase the proportion of PhD students with a first cycle education in the various programmes at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy.

The Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy at Uppsala University is investing in increasing the interest in preclinical research among students at the medical, biomedical and pharmacy programmes at Uppsala University.