Career Perspectives Series

Pursuing a PhD degree is a rewarding and exciting experience. You have the opportunity to study a specific research question in depth and become a leading expert in your field of research. But have you considered what you would like to do with your PhD degree?

Would you like to stay in academia and become a professor or academic researcher? Or would you like to become an entrepreneur and start your own business? Do you prefer to work in government, industry, or in higher education teaching? Employers from all sectors value the talents and skills that PhD graduates have to offer!

The Career Perspectives Series (CPS) is open to all PhD candidates and Postdocs at the University of Groningen. The programme provides training in the area of soft-skills development and how to translate these skills to successful careers outside or inside academia:

Workshops (a series of career building workshops, see below)
Courses (one to three day courses, see below)
Career events (Meet & Greet events, bi-annual 3MT Competition, communities)
Data Science (see below)

"You cannot climb the career ladder with your hands in your pockets." (Dutch Coaching Calendar)

All courses and workshop are awarded with ECTS credits. Each PhD candidate is expected to complete 30 ECTS (for a 4 year PhD programme), of which a portion can be earned through following CPS courses and workshops. All CPS courses will list how many ECTS credits you will be awarded for each course or workshop series.

Our workshops and courses are also open for Postdocs. We do want to advise you to carefully read the tekst of the workshop/course that you want to follow, as some of them are specifically targeted towards PhD candidates.

Please talk to your Graduate School or PhD Coordinator about payments or reimbursements for courses. For further informatiom you are welcome to contact the Groningen Graduate Schools. PhD scholarship students who cannot cover the costs for a particular course are asked to email phd-cps@rug.nl to discuss a further reduction in the course costs.

During your PhD studies here in Groningen, we hope that you will take the opportunity to follow the Career Perspectives Series and discover what it is that makes you passionate about research and how you can develop your talents and skills as a researcher towards a successful and fulfilling career after your PhD!

Upcoming workshops and courses:

Workshops

In our CPS Workshops series we offer interactive workshops focused on various PhD careerbuilding topics. Learn how to build up your CV for a non-academic position, learn more about networking for people, or learning to fail and stay happy about it. There are a wide range of workshops to follow on building your future PhD career!

Workshops are held approximately twice per month on a Friday afternoon and will repeat on an annual basis (dependent on demand).

Behind each workshop we indicate whether it is aimed at an academic career (IA = Inside Academia), a non-academic career (OA = Outside Academia) or both (both).

Check out our course page as well for more extensive courses!

Note: if you are unable to attend a workshop or course you signed up for after all, please send us an email at phd-cps rug.nl

Our curriculum - sign up will become available when the dates are published:

Workshops in 2025 you can sign up for:

Content Creation for the PhD Science Communication Platform: "MindMint" (ongoing) - both
Scrumming And Other Management Techniques (date to be published) -both
Learn To Fail (And Stay Happy About It!) (date to be published) -both
Academic Writing: Reduce Anxiety (date to be published) -IA
How To Be Your Best Possible Team (date to be published) -both
Lecture: The Next Step- A Postdoc (date to be published) -IA
Motivation Letter Writing Outside Academia (date to be published)- OA
Media Training (date to be published) -both
The Landscape Of Post-PhD Career Tracks (4 April 2025) -OA
Shape Your Future: Academic CV Building (11 April 2025) -IA
Recruitment: How Does It Work (9 May 2025) -OA
Assertiveness Now And At Your New Job (13 May 2025) -both
Working In The Humanitarian Sector (23 May 2025) -OA
Storytelling (13 June 2025) -both
Academic Transfer: Toolbox for Career Opportunities (27 June 2025) -both
Intellectual Property: Becoming A Patent Attorney (4 July 2025) -OA

Working at a University of Applied Science (Hogeschool) (November 2023) - OA
Introduction to Careers Inside Academia - IA
Introduction to Careers Outside Academia - OA

These workshop will be offered again in the second half of 2025:

Courses

Introduction to Teaching - for PhD students who are not (officially) teaching a course but are, for example, involved in the education of Bachelor's and/or Master's students and/or would like to learn more about teaching and mentoring. Thesis supervision is not addressed during this training.
Start to Supervise - for (new) PhD students with current or upcoming supervision tasks
University Teaching Qualification UTQ (BKO)
HBO and VWO school teaching - please contact the teachter education department (lerarenopleiding) of the appropriate faculty. They will compile a tailored training programme with you

Entrepreneurship and starting your own business:

Venture Lab North - Learning the process of Business Development

From the CIT Data Science Team

R and Python are becoming essential tools in all academic fields to import, clean visualize and analyse your data. We offer highly interactive and enthusiastic online courses to introduce you to R or Python in 6 morning or 12 evening sessions.

Click the links below for more information and course dates and to register:

For any questions or suggestions about the CPS Programme, please feel free to contact us at the Graduate Schools or send an email to phd-cps rug.nl