The individual study plan (ISP) is an agreement between you as a doctoral student, your supervisor, examiner, and the university on the commitments of the respective parties in relation to the progress of your doctoral education. An important thing to do at the beginning of your doctoral education is to draw up an individual study plan together with your main supervisor. The individual study plan must be drawn up no later than three months after the start of your studies and then followed up on and revised at least once a year. The purpose of the individual study plan is to be a document that systematises your educational activities and follows your progression through the educational programme. Progression in this context must be seen as more than "doing things" and must be linked to the learning objectives in the general syllabus.

The study plan includes information about which courses you plan to take in addition to the compulsory ones in your research subject and which courses from the range of more general, generic, doctoral courses you choose to study. The plan also contains information about your research assignment as well as any other credits for you to achieve the goals of the doctoral degree (alternatively licentiate degree). The study plan may also have a legal power, for example when a withdrawal of resources may become relevant, as in situations in which a doctoral student is not performing sufficiently despite repeated instructions and efforts on the part of the university.

The study plan must be signed by you and your main supervisor and approved by the examiner in cases where you are in an educational programme where you are assigned one. Thereafter, the responsible Research Education Committee or KFU are to approve the study plan with its revisions.

Research, and thus also the doctoral education programme, necessarily has an element of unpredictability. It is important that when the unexpected happens, that you discuss with your supervisors a possible need to adapt and revise your individual study plan to the new situation. Any revisions must then be approved by the Research Education Committee or KFU.

If you as a doctoral student have an employer other than the University of Borås, there must also be an approval from the employer that time for the educational programme is set aside within your regular employment. It must also be stated how the educational programme is funded.