Three Outstanding Doctoral Research works

The International Union of Forest Research (IUFRO) has a world congress each 5th year. Next world congress is in Seoul in August 2010. Previous congresses took place in 2000 and 2005. At this occasions IUFRO shares awards. One Award is "Outstanding Doctoral Research Award" (ODRA). ODRA recognizes outstanding individual achievements and can be regarded as the best recent doctor thesis in the world. ODRA awards are given to the field of each IUFRO division. Division 2 deals with physiology and genetics. There are some hundred PhD thesis to select among at each occasion. This means that three times in a row IUFRO has decided to award the students of Dag Lindgren. A term for three successful runs in a row is hat trick (in Swedish).

The latest ODRA awardee is Finnvid Prescher (2010).
Links concerning Finnvid Prescher ODRA
SLU - Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
http://www.sveaskog.se/Press-och-nyheter/Pressmeddelanden/2009/Frochef-far-exklusivt-pris-for-tajming-i-froplantager/
http://www.skogsplantor.se/templates/page.aspx?id=432
https://arbetsplats.slu.se/sites/sfak/Nyhetsbrev/Sfak_nyhetsbrev091218.pdf
https://arbetsplats.slu.se/sites/sfak/Nyhetsbrev/Sfak_engnyhetsbrev091218.pdf
Nordgen-Skog
UPSC
http://www.skogsaktuellt.se/?p=32913&pt=108&m=1422
Västerbottenskuriren 100116
PlantAktuellt 2009-4:3
http://www.nyhetskanalen.se/1.1406071/2009/12/21/fick_pris_for_arbetet_om_froplantagerna
http://www.goforwood.info/fr/news.php?id=28660
http://resschool.slu.se/index.cfm?PageAction=lasmer&id=141
WP Seed orchards
Det finns de som försöker vigga pengar med det prisbelönade arbetet som dragplåster

The ODRA for "physiology and genetics" (Division 2) 2000. 2005 and 2010 are listed in the Table below. The list of papers is what finally came out from the thesis chapters.

All made there thesis work at Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå and all had Dag Lindgren as supervisor. The proposals were raised by different persons or organisations, supported by different persons and dealt with different persons in IUFRO awarding committee and board. It ought to be an handicap that these awards were given to students from the same department, the same country, the same supervisor and similar agenda. Thus it cannot be a coincident depending only on unusually bright students, but also the other joint factors must have been important.

Dag Lindgren and his three ODRA students, photo taken at Dag Lindgren's 65 year birthday 070927 Suggested text: The supervisor with his three Outstanding Doctoral Research Awardees. From left Run-Peng Wei, Finnvid Prescher, Dag Lindgren and Kyu-Suk Kang. photo: Jan-Erik Nilsson

Article following Kyu-Suks ODRA (Journal for University employee in Swedish)

Features:

• They choose the supervisor and approached me with the funding needed to start from their employer.
• Two I had never seen until I met them at Umeå airport.
• All had family (spouse and children) during their studies
• All had employment and experience within the area of the thesis work
• The thesis are similar in style and target journals
• The thesis are all "thick", 11-13 chapters, of them 9-13 journal papers, which is more than double the average at the faculty.
• All manuscripts at the dissertation heading for journals were published (100% success rate)
• Journals of publication are normal forest journals more often than general and citation of their work is not spectacular high.
• The emphasis of the thesis is not on data generation, but on analysis. Variants of effective number and genetic diversity are important.
• The awards 2005 and 2010 focus on seed orchards
• At least two thirds of the papers are with the supervisor. The thesis are all evident examples of fruitful interaction between supervisor and student.
• Two of the thesis have papers with other students in the group, one has not.
• The time between acceptance and dissertation was 38-51 months (unusually little)
• The two foreign students did not come for a PhD, the program was upgraded to PhD after some time.
• The financing was the employer and three foundations close to Forestry (Föreningen skogsträdsförädling, Kempe, Skogsindustrins forskningstiftelse. Not the SLU budget (via faculty or department), not Formas, strategiska forskningsstiftelser).

Award winners from Brisbane 2005 are presented