Tuition fee
PhD applicants can enroll in the FGB Graduate School in exchange for a yearly tuition fee, to cover costs of
- Supervision
- ICT (e.g. VUnet-id, email, access to library and scientific work available on Internet, access to computer software with reduced price)
- Office space VU, including use of a computer
The FGB Graduate School tuition fee is waived for:
- Internal PhD candidates employed at FGB
- External PhD candidates within programs for which waivers have been negotiated (CSC, Academic Workplaces, …)
- Tuition fees may be (partly) waived in case of special circumstances, to be determined by the head of the Department hosting the PhD candidate.
Tuition fee for PhD enrolling in 2019 or later: € 10.000/year.
In addition to tuition fee, applicants need to budget for:
- Training budget: Courses, conferences in fulfillment of the education requirements (training budget with a minimum of €5000 for the whole project; see below)
- Contribution to lab costs, as set by the host department or project (e.g., for use of equipment, data, technical support)
- Other material costs for conducting the planned research
Training budget
As per May 1, 2017, all PhD candidates have a training budget. This is to cover possible costs of the required PhD training, e.g., course admission and congress visits up to a total of 30ECTs. The training budget should comprise at least €5.000, i.e. €1.250 or €1.667 per annum for a 4-year or a 3-year PhD project, respectively.
- For primary funded (1e geldstroom) PhD candidates, the department is responsible for providing a training budget;
- PhD candidates on secondary funding (2e geldstroom), the corresponding grants (by, e.g., NWO, ZonMw, KNAW) include a so called benchfee that should serve as training budget;
- For PhD candidates funded by industry, charity organisations, ERC or EU-funded projects (3e geldstroom), the promotor is responsible for guaranteeing a training budget through the financing party.
- For PhD candidates without a funding party (i.e. any of the above), the promotor1 is responsible for making an agreement with the candidate about the PhD training budget. The training budget (minimum €5.000) must be available at the outset of the PhD trajectory.
- If no (implicit) agreements have been made regarding the training budget, e.g., for projects with one of the above funding that started before the introduction of the new Doctorate Regulations on April 1, 2015, the department (c.q. the promotor1) must provide the necessary finances for the necessary training.
The expected training costs and the corresponding funding have to be detailed prior to the start of the training, together with the training plan in Hora Finita.
By default, training costs will be charged to the corresponding project budget number. In the case of financial support through the department, business control will supply the PhD candidate with a budget number for his/her training at the start of the project, to guarantee a training budget of up to €5.000. Any unused funds will be returned to the faculty.
In all cases, the promotor* is responsible for specifying funding and monitoring its use for training throughout the PhD project.
*The promotor can delegate this to the co-promotor(es): The person(s) who supervises the PhD candidate in the process culminating in a dissertation and performs the conferral of the doctorate.
PhD Reimbursement
As of 1 January 2017, the PhD defence reimbursement will be paid by the Faculty (i.e. FGB). All FGB PhD candidates that have provided the University Library with a licence for non-exclusive publication of the dissertation in electronic form, if necessary with a temporary publication embargo, are entitled to a PhD defence reimbursement of € 500,-. Read more on the application for the PhD Reimbursement.
If an (external) PhD candidate meets all of the following requirements, they may also qualify for an additional expense allowance of €300 in addition to the standard expense allowance of €500 (bringing the total expense allowance to €800):
- The PhD candidate is employed by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam or is an external PhD candidate with their own time-dependent scholarship or stipend;
- The (external) PhD candidate meets the timeliness requirement of their contract (full time max 4 years, part time max 5 years at 0.8 fte). The date of admission to the dissertation defense, signed by the dean, must therefore be before the end date specified in the training and supervision plan at that time.
