Doctoral Education and Doctoral Schools

You choose which activities to take part in, although there are of course some compulsory components, like the training programme for PhD students. Thanks to the programme, you will acquire skills that will benefit your career and the university. 

Are you a PhD student? Then you are obliged to follow a doctoral study programme at VUB. The emphasis is on a flexible and individually tailored programme that meets your needs.

The activities within it will help you develop more versatility. They will help you acquire additional skills to support your research and possibly teaching activities, and can also be useful outside your field of study and the academic environment. You can attend free seminars and numerous workshops, for example on presentation techniques, project management, academic English, or career coaching.

You choose which activities to take part in, although there are of course some compulsory components, like the Introduction Package for PhD students. Thanks to the programme, you will acquire skills that will benefit your career and the university. 

Take a look at the We Are PhD-portal for all relevant information!

What

As a doctoral candidate, you must follow the training programme for doctoral students. You must obtain at least 30 credits before submitting your doctoral dissertation. You must have at least 5 credits for each category:

• Research output
• Education and supervisorship
• Training in specialised skills
• Training in transferable skills

Exceptions

Doctoral students who started their doctoral studies before the 2019-2020 academic year are not required to follow the programme. There are some other exceptions. You can request an exception by submitting this form to the Researcher Training & Development Office.

Form

Events that will get you started in the right direction

As a doctoral student, you decide which skills you need and how you plan to develop them. VUB organises several events to help candidates get started, please find all relevant information on our internal pages.

wearephd.vub.be               Training offer TEO LRN

There are 2 activities you must participate in as a PhD student:

• The introduction days for new PhD students. During these days, you will obtain important information about the services you need, how the Doctoral Schools work, what is appropriate scientific behaviour and what is not, etc.
• Your faculty can decide to make the training programme for PhD students (or parts of it) compulsory if they feel it adds value to your process.

VUB offers research programmes that meet the highest international standards, in a strong research environment. Our three Doctoral Schools support you with a broad offer of activities, courses and workshops on general scientific and interdisciplinary skills as well financial aid for research activities.

• Doctoral School of Human Sciences 
• Doctoral School of Life Sciences & Medicine 
• Doctoral School of Natural Science and Bioscience Engineering