With this page we hope to be able to answer most of your questions regarding our doctoral education and services and in other cases to guide you to the right department or persons for questions related to your PhD trajectory.
Can't find the answer you are looking for? Drop us an email and we'll look into it!
The graduate school in general
When you start your PhD at one of the faculties or institutes affiliated with the graduate school, you automatically are a member. This also goes for external PhD candidates with a GVO at Erasmus University.
We don't keep a list of members, you can register without costs for our courses using your personal faculty email address.
PhD candidates of other faculties and institutes can't become members, however most of our courses are also accessible for external PhD candidates against a course fee.
Course information
Course registration
This depends on your background:
- If you're a master student; no.
If you're a research master student; possibly. Do contact us first explaining your background and why you would need to take the course.
- If you're a researcher, junior researcher or similar at one of our faculties or institutes, do contact us first explaining your background and why you would need to take the course.
Do note that in these cases a full course fee is applicable and that our PhD candidates always take precedence.
Yes, we do have waiting lists available for our courses.
When you register for a course which is already full, you are automatically placed on the waiting list. You will receive an email about this from us. Do note that the waiting list is only valid for that specific edition. Names on the waiting list are not transferred to the next edition nor to courses in the next academic year.
Mandatory courses
The EUR PhD policy requires a PhD candidate to take courses covering the following three mandatory topics during their trajectory:
- Professionalism and integrity in research
- Responsible research data management
- Open science
Our school has combined the latter two into one course: 'Open science and research transparency'. So to cover all three mandatory topics, it suffices to take the courses:
Professionalism and integrity in research
Open science and research transparency
It is possible that your specific faculty or department requires additional mandatory courses. Please enquire with your PhD officer about this.
Credits, Hora Finita and TSP
The Erasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences adheres to the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) for crediting courses. In general, this means:
| Per session of 3-4 hours | ECTS |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 1,5 |
| 3 | 2 |
| 4 | 2,5 |
The graduate school team have no access to Hora Finita.
Every faculty has its own Hora Finita contact person, you can find a full list on the webpage of the Beadle's Office.
Certificates and DSI
We aim to send out certificates two weeks after the end of the course. There can be various reasons why we haven't sent them out yet:
- You haven't attended all sessions of the course and have not communicated about this beforehand.
- You haven't attended all sessions of the course and haven't completed the alternative assignment you were given to make up for the missed session (alternative assignments are provided when possible and when arranged beforehand with the lecturer).
Do contact us when none of the above reasons apply to you.
Course curriculum
Our graduate school offers doctoral education in methodology, philosophy of science and professional skills with themes such as:
- Qualitative data collection and/or analysis
- Quantitative methods / big data
- Mixing - regarding both qualitative and quantitative methods
- Analysis of literature
- Organising your work and data management
- Impact
- Presenting
- Publishing
For a full list of our course programme, please visit our online course guide.
EGSH no longer offers courses in didactic skills.
For this subject we recommend you take the RISBO course: 'Didactics of delivery in education'. Please contact your faculty about organising this course for you.
Reference check doctoral dissertation
Our graduate school performs the reference checks on dissertations of PhD candidates affiliated with our faculties. Reference checks on dissertations of PhD candidates usually are requested by the first supervisor. Click here for the procedure.
PhD council
The PhD Council is a platform by and for PhD candidates at the EGSH. The Council was founded on the premise that the opinions, questions and issues of each PhD candidate should be heard and discussed. To this end each faculty or institute participating in the EGSH ideally has a seat in the Council by means of (at least) one representative.
The PhD Council members are key regular representatives of the EGSH PhD community who advocate the interests of PhD candidates and contribute to the organisational development of the EGSH.
The current members of the PhD council can be found on the PhD council page of our website. You can contact the Council via the individual email address of the Council members or via the general email address phdcouncil@egsh.eur.nl.
The EGSH PhD Council is always looking for new members to strengthen their team! Send an email to phdcouncil@egsh.eur.nl if you're interested!
For more info about a seat in the council, please click here.
Security guidelines fieldwork
When conducting field-based research or fieldwork, researchers often operate within complex and dynamic social and political contexts, and derive their data from that environment. Both the quality of research and the security of the researcher are a function of how well-planned the research is, taking into account the local context and the risk environment.
This manual is designed to assist researchers in conducting their research in hazardous, remote or complex environments as safely and securely as possible, both for those working within their home country, or as foreigners. The focus of this manual is on the individual researcher, yet takes into account that the researchers’ security planning is usually within the organisational procedures and processes of home or host organisations, designed to enhance the security of research staff and programmes.
You can download the manual here.
The final phase of your PhD
For all information regarding finalising your PhD and all that comes with it, we advise you to visit the webpage of the Beadle's Office. Here you will find information on Hora Finita, the PhD defence ceremony, the doctoral regulations, etc. Contact your PhD officer if you can't find the information you need here.
Info for new PhD candidates
PhD Handbook
The last version of the PhD handbook dates from 2018. As the information is this version is outdated, we advise you not to rely on it.
We have decided not to continue the handbook, but to create this FAQ page instead.
Do let us know if you miss information on here.
Data and Privacy
Please take note of the following data retention periods* our graduate school adheres to:
- Certificates and declarations of scientific integrity (DSI)**: up to 10 years
- Attendance lists: up to 10 years
- Personal feedback: a maximum of 1 year
- Anonimised feedback: up to 10 years
*Our data retention periods are in accordance with the selection list that applies to our university.
**As from 2024 EGSH doesn't keep a copy of the DSI. Participants are sent a blank version and responsible for signing and keeping the declaration. The declaration is only valid in combination with the certificate of participation in the Professionalism and Integrity course. Declarations created and signed before 2024 will be kept for 10 years.