Vestibylen

Most of the information you need as a Ph.D. student/employee at HVL you will find through the web-portal Vestibylen. Here you can find links to the salary system, room booking, calendars of your colleague, IT service, card service,  etc. Important note! You will be asked for credentials when logging into Vestibylen or any surrounding applications. Here you will always select Feide as your credential provider. This is more or less what you will use for logging into everything regarding HVL.

Room booking

All booking of meeting rooms and parking spaces in the garage under the school is handled through the timeedit portal. The portal is only in norwegian, but it’s relatively easy to navigate once you’re in. After logging in through the link with your Feide credentials, go to Reservasjon Møterom. The rest of it should be pretty easy to figure out.

Travel and expenses refund

The refund system at HVL is a bit messy. Some useful tips can be

• When you first arrive at HVL, you should get a project number for your specific Ph.D. project. Keep this in a safe place, you will need it!
• The first thing the portal will ask you for is what kind of refund you want (domestic or international travel, expense refund).

People you should know about and that can help you

Kristin Fanebust, Head of the department

As the head of the department, Kristin is quite busy, but she will point you in the correct direction if you ask her about something. You can find more information and her office location here.

Pål Ellingsen, Assistant head of the department

Pål is also a good person to talk to for general information and know-how about how HVL works. You can find more information and his office location here.

Håvard Helstrup, PhD Program Coordinator 

Håvard is the program coordinator for the PhDs and will help you with all formal Ph.D. relevant questions. You can find more information and his office location here.

Social Committee

For day-to-day questions about Ph.D. life, you can talk to the Social Committee. Michele (michele.gazzea@hvl.no) & Tim (tkra@hvl.no) are the current social committee, and you will find them in Fabrikkgaten.

Social Meeting

The Ph.D. social committee organizes monthly social meetings, where all of the Ph.D. students get together for an hour to socialize and discuss various aspects of Ph.D. life. You should be added to the relevant mailing list when arriving at HVL. If this is not the case, please send an email to either Michele (michele.gazzea@hvl.no) or Tim (tkra@hvl.no).

Sick leave

If you are sick and can’t work, please register for those days. Even if it’s a short period like two days, at the end of your Ph.D., you can get a contract extension with the total of days you were out of work. If you add all short periods during 3-4 years, you might get a nice extension 🙂 To register these days, go to DFØ portal > Fravær.

HVL travel insurance & credit card

HVL only assures travel insurance within Scandinavia. If you travel to a country where you need insurance to cover your health expenses, you will need to get one on your own, you will not be covered by HVL. This health insurance cannot be paid with your Ph.D. funding. What you can do, is order a credit card with travel insurance, like the one offered by HVL.  A description of the HVL credit card is available here, and the application form is here. This credit card is a convenient way to pay for duty travel, and it includes travel insurance and no annual fee. You are NOT allowed to use this card for private expenses. You must pay the credit card invoice yourself and then make expense claims to HVL. If you are efficient in making your travel claims (do it as soon as you come back from the trip), you may well get paid by HVL before you have to pay the credit card bill.