PhD Regulations

All formal regulations for PhD candidates at the School of Humanities can be found in the PhD Regulations.

PhD Thesis Requirements School of Humanities 

See the supplement of article 16.2 for regulations regarding PhD thesis within the School of Humanities. See here for the Dutch version.

Hora Finita

At the start of their trajectory all PhD candidates receive a Hora Finita account. Hora Finita is the registration system for PhD candidates of the VU Amsterdam. All processes related to the PhD trajectory, from the admission to the submission of the dissertation, run through this system. For Hora Finita guidelines and instructions, see here.

Research Abroad

Going abroad is a valuable experience, but a solid preparation is essential. Please carefully go over the VU’s checklist as a guideline to properly prepare yourself.  VU Amsterdam follows the travel advice of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  For further questions and information, reach out to: internationaltravelpolicy@vu.nl.

Research and AI 

GenAI is a very useful tool in research that must be used responsibly as a researcher. On this webpage, you will find the framework within which GenAI can be used responsibly and effectively in research at VU Amsterdam in, for example, scientific publications, project applications and dissertations

Ethics Committee

Research in the Humanities frequently involves the (re)use of personal/sensitive data. Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural, living person. PhD candidates at the VU working with personal data need to comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GPPR) and the Uitvoeringswet Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (UAVG). This applies to personal data of any kind, such as text, photographs, databases, videos, audio recordings, etc. To this end, PhD candidates working at the School of Humanities who are planning to (re-)use personal data in their research need to submit an application to the Research Ethics Review Committee (ETCO) before commencing their research project. For more information and application forms, see here.

Research Data Management

The School attaches immense importance to the accessibility of its research output, both in terms of publications (Open Access) and the data on which they are based. The research data must be reliable, traceable and securely stored. This is important in ensuring the observability, controllability, reuse and (if possible) repeatability of the study. This requires responsible management during the research phase and subsequent sustainable storage, in accordance with the FAIR Principles; the rules of the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU, 2018); and the rules set out in the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP 2015-2021) for independent research assessment. VU Amsterdam’s web pages on the theme of research data and the RDM web pages of the University Library provide sound guidelines for recording data. They also contain a wealth of information about archiving research data. To secure that PhD’s are informed about the do’s and don’ts of data management, they are obliged to take the annual Data Management course run by the Graduate School.