Research Schools

Many doctoral students in the Netherlands are trained at so-called “research schools” (“onderzoekscholen”). These are based upon the Anglo-Saxon graduate school, but have acquired their own specific character in this country. The research schools have their own research programmes and are responsible for the PhD trainings of students of the affiliated faculties. Schools are headed by a director and a scientific advisory board. They fall under the auspice of one of the faculties.

 

The Faculty of Arts holds the secretary of the following research school:

• the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies (NRSMS) 

Researchers and PhD students of the faculty institutes are members of a research school in their area. Apart from the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies, researchers at the Faculty of Arts participate in:

• the School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (BCN),
• the Dutch National Graduate School in Classical Studies (OIKOS),
• the Netherlands research institute and research school for economic and social history (N.W. Posthumus Institute),
• the Netherlands School of Archaeological Research (Archon ), and
• the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics(LOT).

 

Graduate school for the Humanities

In the near future, the Faculty of Arts intends to create the Graduate school for the Humanities. The creation of graduate schools is taking place at all Dutch universities and should be seen as the maintenance of high-quality research in a globalizing world. Great value is attached to the development of substantial yet flexible organisational relationships, through which Master’s students, doctoral students, supervisors and researchers from the Netherlands and abroad can work with and learn from each other. The organisational entity to respond to these changes is the “graduate school”. The creation of the graduate school reformulates responsibilities in the actual research organisation and has therefore a great organisational impact on universities and research schools. For researchers and PhD candidates the graduate school is meant to be a transparent, attractive and inspiring environment where continuous cross-fertilization between education and research takes place. In the graduate school doctoral training will be embedded in institutional strategies and structures so as to benefit from synergies with research strengths, integration into larger interdisciplinary contexts, offering also supplementary training perspectives and better social integration for doctoral candidates.