Graduate School

Obtaining your PhD at the UvH

Becoming an employed PhD candidate

Are you an emerging scholar with a (research) Master’s degree in the Humanities or Social Sciences, eager to build a career in academia? If your research interests align with our programme, a position as an employed PhD candidate could be the right path for you.

Employed PhD candidates are appointed by the university for 32 or 38 hours per week, with contracts typically lasting four to five years. These positions are funded through external sources such as NWO, ZonMw, the EU, or other foundations and social organisations. Current vacancies are listed on our HR portal (this portal is mainly in Dutch).

Are you exploring PhD scholarships or other funding opportunities? Do you need a supervisor to support your application? Reach out to the relevant research department to discuss your plans.

Becoming an external PhD candidate

Are you a professional looking to deepen your expertise and advance your career through scientific research? Do you already have experience in research and academic writing? If your research interests align with our programme, and you’re available at least two days a week to pursue PhD research alongside your job, the UvH Graduate School could be the right fit for you.

To be enrolled at the UvH Graduate School, you will follow an assessment procedure. If selected, you will be admitted to the first year of the Graduate School’s training and supervision programme. The programme starts each year in the last week of August.

The programme

The first year

The first year of the UvH Graduate School has one main objective: producing a valid and robust research proposal that can be submitted to obtain access to the remaining years of the PhD-trajectory. The year has three key components:

Academic Development
You strengthen your academic knowledge and research skills, including academic English writing. This training supports the creation of both a strong research proposal and a theoretical or empirical article—or a review article—suitable for submission to an international peer-reviewed journal.

Interdisciplinary Foundations
We offer you an introduction to key concepts and research methods in the interdisciplinary fields of Humanistic Studies and the Ethics of Care, providing a strong theoretical basis for your work.

Community and Support
You become part of a supportive research community where PhD candidates share experiences, discuss work-in-progress, and build lasting academic connections. Additionally, all PhD candidates will schedule regular meetings with their own PhD supervisor(s).

PhD candidates submit their research proposal to the UvH Board for the Conferral of Doctoral Degrees, where it is reviewed and assessed. After approval, PhD candidates may proceed to the subsequent years in the Graduate School.

Subsequent years (GS2+)

In the subsequent years, PhD candidates partake in elective courses in research methodology, such as ‘Participant observation and shadowing’ or ‘Narrative research’, and academic skills development such as ‘Presenting academic work’. Together with their supervisors, you design a tailor-made education programme that responds to your individual needs in pursuit of doctoral research, writing a thesis, publishing in international academic and professionally oriented journals and for a broad audience and readership. In addition to UvH-based courses, as a PhD candidate you can follow specialised courses from other universities, institutes, and research schools.

Compulsory

Please note that participation in the GS programme is compulsory. The minimal requirement of attained credit points (ECTS) in the first year is ten (10) of which nine (9) are compulsory and one (1) elective. All PhD candidates must attain 12 ECTS in the GS2+ phase before submitting their PhD dissertation to a PhD review committee.

Embedding in the academic community

As a PhD candidate you are encouraged to partake in the university’s reading groups, meetings of research departments, monthly research seminars or other research fora in which draft academic work is discussed. PhD candidates are required to present a paper at an (inter)national academic conference at least once during their PhD trajectory and are strongly encouraged to do so regularly.

Requirements

All PhD candidates must hold a Master’s or a Drs. degree. We also expect candidates to have some research and writing experience in the last 2 to 5 years. As a PhD candidate you will be required to submit and publish articles to international peer-reviewed journals. Many PhD dissertations consist of a collection of academic peer-reviewed articles. Furthermore, you must be able to spend at least two full days (16 hours) a week on your PhD research.

To be admitted to the Graduate School, you will follow an assessment procedure. A short English proficiency assessment is a part of the procedure. The information regarding this proficiency assessment will be shared with the candidates once they apply to the programme.

Application

A limited number of positions are available each year, depending on supervisor capacity. In December, we publish the available research topics and fields for which you can apply. This publication is the start of the assessment procedure. You may apply to the Graduate School in the period between December 2025 and April 6th, 2026. The application period closes on April 6th, 2026, at 15.00 CEST.

Tuition Fee

The UvH Graduate School programme fee for the 2025-2026 academic year is €500. As additional costs are concerned: depending on your individual PhD trajectory, you may choose to purchase topic-specific books, partake in external courses, attend conference and so forth. You are kindly advised to take this into consideration when planning your funds allocation.