Study program
The ASK PhD program’s idea assumes collaborative work of all candidates, allowing for exchange of knowledge and experiences and gaining research skills. The core of the program is designed in form of the vertical studio, in which students perform different tasks depending on their year of study.
Each stage of the studies ends with a milestone. After the first year, each student submits an article presented at the internal PhD conference. The second year ends with an article in a reviewed journal or at an international conference. After the third year of studies, the PhD candidate introduces his/her own research project proposal, which can be developed into funding application. The program schedule is designed in order to support these milestones.
The ASK PhD program consists of four thematic blocks:
- Methodology: courses in research methods; consists of three stages reflecting the program’s milestones and deliverables. The first year’s course covers scientific writing and prepares the candidate for submitting the first paper for publication. The second year focuses on scientific methods of reasoning, proving and presenting the research results. The third year addresses project methods in science and research, including stakeholder analysis, communication methods, collaboration and project management.
- Laboratory: the core block of the program; students work together on common research projects in the ASK research unit. The Lab is organized in the form of vertical studio: the project roles change depending on the candidate’s year of study, from assistantship tasks to team management.
- Theory: subjects covering topics specific for the ASK PhD program, such as information architecture, simulation and optimization in design, sustainable development in the digital context, development of knowledge bases in architectural research
- Interdisciplinary: courses in social sciences (sociology, psychology) as well as economics and interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of engineering and beyond. This block includes a flexible offer of courses prepared in cooperation with WUT’s Center for Advanced Studies.
All activities related to the ASK PhD program will be realized in the information environment dedicated to the ASK unit. The ASK PhD cluster possesses its own thematic library which will be continuously extended — also with publications by the program’s own participants. For the needs of the ASK research unit, a new publishing series was established.
Each course will be supported with the moodle platform, containing all basic knowledge and materials. In the future, the platform will be developed into a larger knowledge repository and program’s archive.