Gitte Wichmann-Hansen

Gitte Wichmann-Hansen has 20+ years of experience with educational development within Higher Education. Her main research interest is supervision of students’ thesis writing, dissertations, and PhD projects.

Gitte’s research is particularly focused on examining the difficult balance in supervision between, on the one hand, promoting students’ independence and ownership, and, on the other hand, ensuring that students’ products are of high quality and that they complete within the expected time frame. Based on her research she has developed a range of concrete tools for supervisors on how to support students in taking ownership of their own projects.

In addition to researching supervision, she supervises PhD students within her field. She also holds supervision seminars for supervisors as well as students on productive supervision processes at PhD, Master and Bachelor level at Danish and European universities. 

Gitte Wichmann-Hansen is currently involved in two large externally funded research- and development projects in collaboration with University of York and University of South-Easten Norway. Both projects are about enhacing supervision by establishing sustainable cultures instead of only individual professionalization. 

Finally, she advises institutional leaders and academic developers across Scandinavia and Europe on supervision quality assurance and improvement strategies in PhD programs.