Associate professors see promotion right as a career step and a sweet treat
University (senior) lecturers have also been able to act as supervisors for a few years now. An evaluation shows that they see the extension of the promotion right not only as a career step, but also as a 'sweetener'.
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Until 2017, only professors could award PhD students the doctorate. Now university lecturers and senior lecturers can also act as promoters. This week came an evaluation to the outside of the extended promotion right.
TU Delft and Maastricht University are among the universities with the most non-professors with the so-called ius promovendi, while Tilburg University, Erasmus University and the Open University grant relatively few non-professors the right to doctorate.
Intensive support
The researchers looked at, among other things, the quality of the supervision of PhD students. It has not deteriorated. The availability of a larger number of promoters mainly offers opportunities, they say. The specific expertise of a supervisor can, for example, lead to “more targeted and intensive supervision”.
Specific expertise of a supervisor can lead to more targeted and intensive supervision
It is not known whether the expansion also led to an increase in associate professors from abroad. Personal considerations and the quality of the science system are more important reasons for researchers to continue their career in the Netherlands. Universities do, however, feel 'supported in their recruitment policy' now that they can offer the prospect of the right to doctorate to more applicants.
licorice
Many of the UHDs interviewed see the formal recognition for their work as supervisors as the most important “direct impact” of the expansion of PhD rights. According to them, this is part of the new 'recognition and appreciation'. In that ideal, they are not only judged on their own research, but there is more attention for tasks such as teaching, directing and therefore also supervising PhD students.
Different views on enlargement emerged in the interviews. For example, there are associate professors who regard the granting of the doctorate right as a career step, but there are also associate professors who see it as a 'concoction'. According to them, it "may have a delaying effect" on a future promotion to professor because there is an intermediate step in their career. Some associate professors would for that reason refrain from applying for the right to doctorate and would rather go straight for a professorship.
Different views on enlargement emerge
Partnerships
The researchers also make a number of recommendations to the Minister of Education. According to them, it is important that there is more insight into the quality of the guidance. This information could be put to good use in “recognition and appreciation dialogues”.
In addition, according to the researchers, it is important that unambiguous standards are established for the granting of doctorate rights. For example, Maastricht University grants the right to doctorate “generic” to associate professors and the University of Amsterdam also “in exceptional cases” to university lecturers.
According to the researchers, if universities follow different rules, this can make "cooperation and mobility between universities" more difficult. Minister Dijkgraaf has already announced that he will start working on the recommendations.
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