UvA doctoral students give their doctoral track an average rating of 7 minus
UvA doctoral students give their doctoral program an average rating of 6.85. At the same time, PhD candidates report worsened well-being more often on average than two years ago. International PhD candidates also still regularly feel like outsiders in the research group. These are the results of the biennial PhD survey conducted by the UvA’s Central PhD Council (CPC).
The survey was conducted among all UvA doctoral students, including Amsterdam UMC and Acta (although there the response rate was the lowest at only 1 percent of the total). Just over 10 percent of the 4,000 UvA doctoral students completed the Central PhD Council (CPC) survey; more than half of them were women. The survey covered supervision, progress, well-being, and social safety topics.
A rating of 7 minus
On average, UvA PhD students gave their PhD project a 6.85 rating, which means only a 7 minus. PhD students with a Dutch nationality on average gave an 8 or higher 10 percent more often than PhD students with a non-Dutch, especially non-European nationality.
In previous PhD surveys, respondents were not asked to give an average grade for the PhD program. This question was added to align with the national evaluation of doctoral programs, informs Benthe van Wanrooij, president of the CPC and a doctoral student in educational sciences. So the figures cannot be compared to previous years.
Reduced well-being
Van Wanrooij notes, on average, a decrease in the well-being of doctoral students. In 2020, 6 percent of PhD students described their well-being as “poor,” in 2022 it was 16 percent. Therefore, more attention must be paid to the well-being of doctoral students, according to the report’s authors. Many PhD students do not know the student psychologists. A campaign pointing PhD candidates to the student psychologists who are there specifically for them could be a solution.
Social safety
About a quarter of respondents experienced socially undesirable behavior in the past year. This happened to women twice as often as to men. Despite the instruments the UvA created in recent years to report safety problems, the number of PhD candidates who experienced socially undesirable behavior has remained stable. Therefore, the UvA should bring reporting tools even more to the attention of PhD candidates, the CPC believes. The UvA must instill in its PhD candidates “a sense of trust and independence so that PhD candidates will actually use the reporting tools.”
Outsiders
International PhD students are more likely than Dutch PhD students to feel like an outsider in the research group: 15 percent of international PhDs do not feel integrated into the research group; 21 percent are not satisfied with social relations at work. The UvA could do more to involve international doctoral students, according to the reporters.
PhD student scholarships
“Two-thirds of scholarship PhDs (5 percent in 2022), receive a grant of less than €1,500 per month. Therefore, a new UvA-wide policy was adopted in March 2022: faculties can supplement the foreign scholarship with up to €1,500. The minimum amount set by the UvA is indexed annually using the consumer price index. The indexation for 2023 will follow.
But not all PhD candidates who started before March 2022 receive this allowance, the PhD survey states. Van Wanrooij says: “By now this has been solved in almost all faculties, but not everywhere.”
In addition, the same UvA-wide policy states that, among other things, more attention should be paid to inclusion, bringing international PhD candidates on board and introducing them to the UvA. In practice, that policy has not yet been perfectly implemented everywhere, writes Timo Schenk, a PhD student in econometrics and secretary of the CPC. “The UvA is therefore monitoring the implementation of this policy in all faculties.”
Slower than desirable
The recommendations are similar to those of previous years, Van Wanrooij and Schenk note: “As far as we are concerned, this shows that change takes a lot of time and is sometimes slower than desirable.”
The report was published in November and the results were discussed with the Executive Board in December. The report’s findings on the well-being and position of doctoral students concern the CvB, the UvA’s employee website indicates. “Together with the faculties, the CvB will therefore once again pay extra attention to the existing policy around the guidance, well-being, and social safety of all UvA PhD students,” a UvA spokesperson announced.
