Call for proposals: NWO PhD in the Humanities 2026

The Faculty of Arts intends to announce to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) the submission of three PhD-project proposals, in the context of the PhDs in the Humanities programme. These project proposals will be selected in an internal procedure, for which the deadline is set at Friday 2 January 2025, 17:00.

Who is this intended for?

The programme is aimed at excellent research master students; students from regular master programmes of comparable excellence qualify as well.

Who can apply?

The applicant for the project is the supervisor affiliated with the UG/Faculty of Arts (‘beoogd promotor’, who is either full, associate or assistant professor with ius promovendi). Interested parties who cannot act as promotor may still apply as main applicant but should ensure that a promotor is listed as co-applicant. Applicants are allowed to submit multiple applications. However, it is crucial that the applicant has time to adequately guide the PhD candidates.

NB: The rule within the Open Competition that you can submit an application at most one year before the end date of an ongoing NWO project has been dropped as of last year (2025). Researchers are therefore no longer restricted from applying within the OC after having been awarded within PhDs in the Humanities.

How to apply?

For the internal procedure, submit a fully developed proposal in English in a single PDF file to the Graduate School for the Humanities (GSH, gsh-groningen rug.nl). Please include the candidate’s e-mail address in your mail. Guidelines for submission are available on the NWO website, and are to be strictly observed, also in the internal selection stage. Selected project proposals are to be submitted by the supervisor to NWO through the ISAAC upload system, deadline 17 February 2026, 14:00.

Internal procedure

Applications received by the GSH will be evaluated by a committee composed of the GSH director and representatives of the research institutes, chaired by the dean. Interviews will take place in the week of 19 January 2026. The formal selection decision will be made in the Faculty Board meeting of 3 February 2026. Proposals of the three selected candidates need to be tightened in the remaining time before the deadline, following directions by the selection committee

Conditions and criteria

Project proposals are evaluated on the basis of a) quality of the PhD-candidate, as evident from CV, diplomas and transcripts, scientific publications and/or presentations, scientific motivation, etc., and b) quality of the proposal. Please note that this year the weighing of assessment criteria has been changed. Before, both criteria weighted for 50% of the final score. This has been changed to 30% for quality of the PhD-candidate and 70% for quality of the research proposal. For a detailed description of the criteria, please consult the NWO website and the PDF-brochure published there.

NB: the same application cannot be submitted more than twice for this programme.

NB: the 2026 call also includes an evaluation of the proposed scientific and/or societal impact.

Appointment

The appointment will be 1,0 fte for 4 years or 0,8 fte for 5 years, depending on what was applied for.

Information

• Raingard Esser, director GSH (r.m.esser rug.nl)
• Marjolein Merx, coordinator GSH (coordinator.gsh rug.nl)