Grant or salary for PhD students

On Friday, the university council discussed a topic that yielded some controversy. TiSEM wants to start a trial with so-called ‘grant PhD’s’, PhD students that do not get a contract, but a grant. Minister Bussemaker (Education) has made a trial like this possible at the beginning of this year.Rector Emile Aarts said that all Dutch universities are involved in the trial, and that Tilburg University wants to stay present in the discussion and at the VSNU, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands. Since the proposal for this trial has made it through the Lower House and TiSEM’s faculty council is enthusiastic, he claims it is a good idea to follow through with the trial. Student faction Front does not agree with this. From what the students heard, the faculty council is not at all unanimously in favor of the plan. Front thinks it is peculiar that a part of the funding for this has already been committed.

Faction SAM spoke to a lot of PhD’s about this trial. Some of them are positive, because the new system would mean they get a grant for four years instead of three. This might lighten their study burden. But according to others, this does not outweigh the cons.Bartel van der Walle (faction ABVAKABO) said that the London School of Economics recently decided to make PhD’s an employee again, and asked the executive board not to copy other university’s behavior. “We should be proud that we are a university that provides contracts to our PhD’s,” he said.

TiU international is in favor of the plan. Martin Salm emotionally argued that there are huge advantages about a PhD grant. He himself enjoyed the academic freedom and the exemption of educational tasks.

Emile Aarts said he thought the reservations that the factions had were small. He said it is only a trial and you cannot decide up front how it is going to work out. He assured Front that no financial commitments are made yet. This did not help for the second term though. The factions were not convinced and only issued short statements. The peak came from ABVAKABO’s Marinus Verhagen: “We will do anything in our power to block the trial with a PhD grant system.”

Next step
In this council meeting, the issue was only discussed and no decision had to be made. Parts of the plan have to go back to TiSEM’s faculty council, other parts will be further discussed in the university council.

London university considers making PhD students employees to recognise their importance in research https://t.co/Hq7aWbt40D #PhdChat

— Phil Baty (@Phil_Baty) 25 juni 2015

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