Review of the Research Institute for History and - Universiteit Utrecht

(i) a title and a short description of the research project to be executed and the intended fi nal result;
(ii) the name of the research group with which the PhD student is affi liated; the name(s) of the
supervisor(s) and possible co-supervisor(s) of other institutes/departments; an explicit division of labor
among them, the frequency of meetings and provisions for long term absence of the supervisor;
(iii) a specifi cation of the way in which the supervisor(s) and the support group will work (and where relevant,
any changes in the support group);
(iv) an assessment of the PhD students’ knowledge and skills in relation to the requirements of the research
project; specifi cation of the training and education programme of the student;
(v) criteria for progress assessment, frequency and form of reporting;
(vi) a specifi cation of the facilities needed;
(vii) the general planning of the whole period.
In the case of aio’s an offi cial assessment will take place at end of the fi rst and second year, in which their
research progress and achievements in the graduate courses are discussed. This procedure can be decisive in
regard to the continuation of the training. The fi rst year assessment is by far the strictest evaluation; however,
if a subsequent annual report gives rise to doubt, a contract may be discontinued.
During the fi rst three years of research, the PhD student reports annually on the progress of the research
project, the tutorials taken, the student’s own contributions, e.g. lectures, articles or (parts of) chapters of
larger publications, and on fi nancial adjustments, etc in an annual progress report submitted to the research
committee. The annual progress report is checked against the original work plan during the fi rst two years
of the research project. At the end of the second year the PhD student has to hand in a general paper, and a
detailed plan for a PhD thesis containing a clear division into chapters and a rough description of the content.
The PhD programme coordinator is available for PhD students to discuss problems (personal, administrative,
academic), is responsible for the administrative handling of the supervision process. She reports to the
academic director in the case of problems.
In 2003 and 2004, OGC offered a workshop for supervisors to train supervision skills. Since 1997, the
rate of successful projects (measured after 7 years) has not increased signifi cantly, which suggest that we still
have not fully mastered the problem.
Until May 2003 Postdocs and PhDs were housed in the Teaching Institutes, together with tenured
faculty. In 2003 the OGC got a building of its own, at Muntstraat 2A, where approximately two-thirds of all
temporary research faculty are now housed. All PhD-students have their own desk with a computer. They
usually share their offi ce with two or three fellow-researchers. OGC encourages PhD-students (and postdocs)
to participate in international exchanges and offers travel facilities and funding for young scholars to
visit international conferences.
A survey among 91 OGC PhD’s who passed their examination in the period 1988-2002 showed that 62
(68,1%) had found a job at a university or a research organization.
367 Research Institute for History and Culture OGC
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