Working on your Ph.D. can be an intense trajectory, and we can learn a lot from each other’s experiences in this regard. To stimulate this sharing, the Ph.D. Community has a buddy system, where members from different universities are partnered up to form buddy pairs. Buddies are matched on research topics, so that buddies can also help each other with information relevant to each other's research, like great readings, debates, conferences, etc.

If you want to become or have a 4TU buddy, please  contact one of the coordinators Jochem Zwier or Mariska Bosschaert at .

The 4TU Ph.D. Community has its very own Slack channel for serious and less serious sharing of ideas, pieces of writing, conferences and events, and many other things. You are added to the channel once you’ve started your Ph.D. at one of the 4TU philosophy groups (but you can also send one of  the PhD Council members an email to speed things up!).

The aim of the weekly peer group is to share Ph.D. experiences and daily work goals in a safe and informal environment. Currently, peer group meetings take place on Wednesday mornings at 10am via Zoom. You are invited to the weekly session once you’ve started your Ph.D. at one of the 4TU philosophy groups (but you can also send one of the PhD Council members an email to speed things up!).  

Once a month, we organize a social event for the community. In the past the events have involved online speed dating, cooking workshops and games. Suggestions are welcome! You receive an invitation once you’ve started your Ph.D. at one of the 4TU philosophy groups.

Each year, the council organizes a “PhD Day”, dedicated to getting to know new PhD candidates who joined our community, doing something fun together, and having interesting workshops. Our intention is to organize this event “in real life”, if the situation allows. More information will be distributed within the community in spring.

The Ph.D. Council organizes the two yearly Writing Retreats for Ph.Ds., part of the core courses of the Graduate Programme. For more information, please go to the PhD Education page.

We (Anna, Bouke, Karen, Luuk and Maaike) are the 2023 PhD Council representatives. The aim of the Council is to represent your interests within the 4TU Center as a whole and its Management Team more specifically, and to organize various events for you in support of your PhD trajectory. Our priorities for this year are to further strengthen the PhD community by organizing a monthly social event and facilitating event suggestions from the community, to set-up a PhD buddy system, to improve the accessibility of information about membership and education for PhDs via the 4TU website and other communication channels, and to make sure the projects and events initiated by our predecessors are continued.

To organize workshops and events that fit your needs and to perform our role as representatives best, we are always looking for your feedback on what we can do for you. Whether this is more information, more get-togethers or help with any other issues you have come across, please let us know!

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by sending an email!