Introduction

As of January 2010 the responsibility for ASCoR PhD students' course work has transferred to the Graduate School. Other aspects of the PhD programme (including supervision, research budget, first year papers, PhD clubs, etc.) have remained ASCoR's responsibility. 

Coursework requirements

Every new PhD student in ASCoR enters into an agreement with ASCoR and the Graduate School concerning the number of EC coursework that needs to be completed during the course of the PhD project. This agreement is laid down in the Training & Supervision plan.

In the standard case, where the PhD student has completed a Research Master before starting a 3-year PhD project, the PhD will need to complete 9 EC of coursework.

In all other cases, the number of EC coursework to complete during the project will depend on a combination of previous training and the project requirements.

Individual transition agreements concerning the number of EC coursework have been made with those PhD students who started their projects within ASCoR before January 2010.

Course offer

The offer of courses for ASCoR PhD students consists of:

1. courses the Graduate School is offering for ASCoR PhD students.
2. courses from the Research Master programme.
3. if the conduct of the PhD research requires special expertise/particular skills not available through the courses in our own training programme, ASCoR PhD students may also attend external courses. There is no "on request-service" for external courses and students will need to find out the options for themselves.

Course registration

ASCoR PhD students can register for a course from the Graduate School PhD and Research Master programme offer as soon as a call for registration has been published. Calls for registration are published via mailing lists.

If you are not as yet on the mailing list or would like us to re-send you the latest call for registration, then please contact Elske Verkruijsse at the Graduate School secretariat: e.m.verkruijsse@uva.nl.

Please note that registration for courses is not without obligation. After registration, PhD students are expected to take part in a course on a similar basis as other students, and this includes attendance as well as completing assignments and meeting deadlines.

Permission for external courses

If you would like to attend a course outside of the Graduate School offer, then please do the following:

1. Please consult your supervisors before submitting a request for attendance of an external course
   
2. Next, formulate a request, which should at least contain a) a motivation/need for attending the external course, b) the course description, and c) a budget, specifying the expected costs, and d) a proposal for the EC credits the course will be worth (keeping in mind that 1 EC is 28 hours of study fulltime)
   
3. Submit the request to Sandra Zwier, the PhD programme coordinator: s.m.zwier@uva.nl

The Graduate School and ASCoR will jointly decide if the request can be granted and/or funding allocated.

Course credits

The overviews of the courses the Graduate is offering for ASCoR PhD students and the courses from the Research Master programme indicate for each course how much EC credits it is worth.

The Graduate School is keeping an administration of the coursework completed for each ASCoR PhD student. An individual overview can be obtained any time from Elske Verkruijsse at the Graduate School secretariat: e.m.verkruijsse@uva.nl.

Please note that course credits are allocated only after a full attendance and fulfillment of the assignments of a course.

Course fees

PhD students from the ASCoR PhD programme are receiving a waiver of the tuition fees for the courses the Graduate is offering for PhD students as well as the courses from the Research Master programme.

The Graduate School will also pay the fees and travel costs for an external course if explicit permission was obtained from the Graduate School in advance.

Course fees for other students can be found here: