My employment history at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Sweden manages to create very nice image of itself for the outsiders. Being attracted by that image, I came to Sweden seven years ago with a desire to master modern techniques in molecular biology, to grow professionally and to get my PhD degree. I got a position at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Before coming to the SLU, when I saw a scientist who was a parasite I thought that he is only a rare exclusion. But year by year grew the realization that parasitism in academia became a norm. Fake “professors” pump out money from public and suck out energy from their students. Flourishing on these resources they quickly gain power and spread parasitism further. My experience at SLU can show how far this contamination infiltrates. I admit that I cannot be completely impartial, because for every bit of this experience I have paid with my time.

Since my first days at the Department of Forest Mycology and PlantPathology, SLU, I was promised that my PhD project would begin soon. But it started only 3 years later. Of course, it was a mistake to believe promises for such a long time. The only excuse was that I had no money to move anywhere else. My scholarship and all the savings I made was just enough for me and my son to settle at the new place.

Finally, when in October 2008 I got a blessing for my own PhD project I rolled up sleeves and started working. Three years without clear goals, without meaningful outcome can make anyone desperately hungry for results and I worked 9-10 hours a day 6 days a week. Well, the process was hard, but the results were good. Suddenly, in January 2012 I got a notification from the SLU that from the next month I will no longer get my salary. My studentship was terminated! My PhD project was going on, but SLU would not pay me for the work.

SLU canceled my salary without notification and did not provide any explanations. It was especially unfair, because my supervisor used me as a worker for three years before my PhD project started. During the whole period of my PhD he could not provide adequate supervision. My supervisor even did not find time for 1.5 year to read my manuscripts and send his feedback. 

My choices were to continue working for free or to leave Sweden and to lose all the results of the last 4 years. I decided to stay at my own expenses and to complete the work. But loosing salary was only the beginning of the story. Next posts will show what can happen if foreign student wonders about his rights and the duties of the SLU professors.