News

UPC + FPC event

As part of the Graduate School Lustrum, the UPC and GS combined their efforts to organise an event for all FPC members! There was an amazing story telling course by InContext and great discussions with actors of the University that are occupied with the following topics:

  • Well-being
  • Duration and position of PhDs
  • Diversity
  • Graduate school and doctoral education

To make sure the discussions don’t get lost we also invited actors in university bodies like GS directors, Integrity Officers and Doctoral Education managers to participate in the discussions. The event was greatly appreciated and we are already looking forward to the next one!

Great supervisors do exist!

Proper and inspiring PhD supervision can lift research to an even higher quality and increase work pleasure for everybody involved. We feel like motivating a PhD candidate, being a scientific role model, conflict resolution, flexibility, showing empathy and having fun in your work could receive more recognition and valuation. For this reason, we gathered stories of situations where PhD candidates were very happy with their supervisor or supervisory team. Too often we talk about negative situations. With these stories, we would like to put some supervisors in the spotlight, and we hope these stories will stimulate PhD candidates as supervisors in finding good ways to work together.

UPC made major step in new PhD contract

PhDs starting from 1 January 2022 will get a new PhD contract. This was initiated since PhD candidates are now by law regarded as public servants. When a doctoral candidate is hired, the doctoral candidate will first be given a 1.5-year temporary contract and, in the event of a ‘go’ (or in the absence of a ‘no-go’), this contract will be extended by 2.5 years. However, the proposed format for the new contract was disadvantageous for PhD candidates. A temporary contract makes it harder to do find a residence, it would take longer for the PhD candidate to know whether he or she can continue his or her PhD and when the supervisory team would neglect its obligations it would lead to an automatic no-go and contract determination. We raised these issues in a general works council meeting, which lead to improvements in the contract: if there is no official no-go issued, the contract will automatically be extended and the employer (TU Delft) will write an official statement of employment when needed for accommodation. The UPC is very happy that we were able to make this change!

PhD Chat Roulette

Since it is hard to get in contact with other PhD candidates in times of Corona, the UPC started a PhD chat roulette session. People get to know more of their fellow PhD candidates, expand their network within the university and maybe even start research collaborations! It is an initiative to improve the communication between PhD candidates at different stages of their journey and across different faculties. Everybody got connected with 3 different persons for 10 minutes. The first session resulted in many positive reactions. So, the UPC decided to organise this event monthly!

Corona Delays

The Corona situation has been causing severe delays for several PhD candidates. There are funds available for a contract extension, when it can be approved that Corona is the main reason of the delay. Out of a TU Delft wide survery followed that not all PhD candidates know that this is possible and the application process is still confusing. Delta wrote several articles about the corona delay situation:

 

July 2020: https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/postdocs-and-doctoral-candidates-warn-about-delays

January 2021: https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/criticism-about-unclear-rules-around-corona-compensation

April 2021: https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/all-round-confusion-about-corona-compensation-phds-and-postdocs

PhD Survey

Promovendi Network Nederland (PNN) executed an extensive survey among PhD candidates, over 2000 participated.  The survey covered many relevant topics in academia

  • Wellbeing and workload
  • Contracts and PhD agreement
  • Work environment
  • Teaching
  • Career

Some of the results were really surprising, for instance, the relatively high amount of mental health problems among PhD candidates. The results can be found at the PNN website (https://hetpnn.nl/phdsurvey2020/).

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