Contact information
UNU-MERIT
PhD Office
Boschstraat 24
6211AX Maastricht
the Netherlands
+31 43 388 4400
phdprogramme@merit.unu.edu
Application procedure
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Can I also deliver application files in person?
Our student affairs office is located in our building at Boschstraat 24, in Maastricht. You can deliver documents there, or if closed, leave them in our mailbox or at the reception. It is not our preferred option though.
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Is it possible to have my employer’s reference letter sent directly to your institute via email (info@merit.unu.edu)?
You will fill out the name and email of the employer in the application form. Upon completion of your application form, an automated email is sent to your employer with the request to send us the letter of support.
In case for some reason you cannot (e.g. self employment) or prefer not to obtain a letter of support, please inform the PhD office phdprogramme@merit.unu.edu
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Can I visit Maastricht before applying?
It is possible to visit Maastricht. However, this visit needs to be arranged by you personally. At this time, we do not offer any open days/consultation hours at the institute, nor can we offer assistance in preparing the proposal or other application documents content-wise, as that would create a conflict of interest during the review round of the applications. In case you are interested to talk to us, please contact our PhD office to register for one of our online consultation sessions.
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Can I be too young or too old for the programme?
Age is not a criterion we consider when selecting the applicants.
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What are my chances of being accepted in year one?
The selection process is quite competitive, as the programme receives many high-quality applications. On average more than 100 people apply during our annual application round, yet we are only able to select a cohort of up to 10 fellows each year.
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What should the research proposal include?
The main objective of asking you to write a research proposal, is to get a clear idea of your research interests and background. This will help us find out if we can offer the right supervision for your research project. By giving detail on the literature you plan to contribute to, the research question and the methodological approach you plan to follow, we are in a much better position to assess our supervisory capacity for your topic.
Therefore, ideally, the research proposal should include some of the following parts (1) background to your research topic (relevance, literature to contribute to, gap in knowledge) ; (2) research question(s) ; (3) theoretical/analytical framework ; (4) methodological approach (e.g. qualitative/quantitative study; data sources and data collection methods).
Please note that a PhD dissertation can be written as a monograph or a collection of research articles. If you would opt for the latter, you may also readily develop a research proposal reflecting this structure, outlining about three research papers, with a short description of the research question, theoretical framework and methodological approach.
We are aware that you may not have this fully developed at this stage, and it is indeed part of the first-year programme to develop the proposal in greater detail. However, we encourage you to reflect on your research plans in preparation for your application and share with us your thoughts. [TOP]
Employer/ Referee
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Can I apply if I am self-employed or an independent consultant?
Self-employed people or independent consultants can apply to the programme. Instead of an employer support letter, we would like to obtain a description of your company, with 1) its main focus / description, 2) starting date of self-employed/consultancy activities. Independent consultants can be considered self-employed, or employed by various institutions.
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What is meant by ”a letter from current employer, including a statement of support of the fellow and an indication of ways to support the fellow”?
We accept fellows based on their past qualifications and a current employment relevance. We also expect fellows to remain employed during the doctoral period, to create a main source of income.
However, writing a dissertation requires time, and it is likely that employers will notice that you are enrolled in the programme. It is our hope that they see the value of it, and encourage and support you in doing your PhD. But at the very least, they should be informed that you intend to start the programme, since you will be required to be in Maastricht for 6 weeks in year one, and for 2 weeks in all subsequent years.
In order to assess to what extent and how your employer is involved, we request a letter from your employer (no specific format required) as part of your application. In this letter, they should indicate that they know you have applied and are aware that once accepted it means you will engage in a longer-term project that requires you to be in Maastricht a certain number of days a year. They can also indicate to what extent they will support you. This support could be by offering you leave days, by paying your tuition, by allowing you to work on your PhD during work time, by allowing you to use company databases, or other forms of support. And they can offer their motivation in terms of how your PhD programme might be beneficial to them.
Since the support of companies varies per fellow, we cannot offer a format for the letter.
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How can I encourage my referees and employer to submit the letters?
When you use the application form, you will enter the contact information of your referees and employer. Please use the application form – this is how we know who your referees are. The referees will be notified by us how they can send the letter to us. If you wish to encourage your referees to send a letter, let them know that they can email the scanned letter and send the original letter to the address mentioned above (Procedure Section).[TOP]
Language Requirements
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My TOEFL has expired, can I still submit it?
An expired copy will do. We will let you know individually if we need an updated one after reviewing the documents.
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Do I still need a TOEFL if I am from an English-speaking country, or if I have studied for my master degree in an English-speaking country?
As the website indicates, if you are a native speaker or studied in English for your BA or MA, you do not need a TOEFL or other proof.
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If I do not have a TOEFL exam, how can I prove my knowledge of English?
The minimum level accepted is 600 PBT, 100 ICT or 240 CBT (TOEFL) or 7.0 (IELTS). Native speakers and students who have received their bachelor’s or master’s education in English are exempted. Other proof of English will be considered upon provision of proof (for instance tests to enter work, or work experience in a native English-speaking country). Please upload your proof in the application form.
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In my country, the next TOEFL exam date is after your application deadline. Can I send the exam results after the deadline?
Yes, you can if you indicate your registration for the exam, as well as inform us of the date of the exam and when we will receive the results. In case we select you for the programme, it will be conditional on passing the English language threshold.
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Do I need proof of English language proficiency?
Proof of your proficiency in English is required unless you are a native English speaker or have obtained a Bachelor or Master degree in an English-language program and in an English-speaking country.
If you have obtained a Bachelor or Master degree in an English-language program and/or in an English-speaking country, you need to submit proof (a request for exemption) that you have worked in an English-language work environment and/or in an English-speaking country for at least 3/5 years.
Please upload a brief note (a request for exemption) under the box ‘Other’ if you want to apply for an exemption on these grounds. Referring to your CV is allowed but do elaborate on why we can exempt you from providing proof of English proficiency.
If you cannot be exempted from the English proficiency requirement, we need a proof of your proficiency in English. We accept a TOEFL, IELTS or Cambridge English: Proficiency and Cambridge English: Advanced tests. The TOEFL code number of Maastricht University is 7102.
Maastricht University has established minimum scores for admission. For a TOEFL test, we require minimum score of 100 (IBT). For an IELTS test, we require a minimum score of 7.0. For the Cambridge English: Proficiency test, the minimum grade required is a C and for the Cambridge English: Advanced test Grade A is required.
Due to experience in previous years, we will also verify partial scores to ensure that all students are capable of participating fully. The requirements for partial scores are:
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TOEFL IBT |
IELTS |
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Cambridge English:Proficiency |
Cambridge English: Advanced |
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N.B. Without fulfilling this requirement, your application is incomplete and will not be submitted to the Board of Admission for assessment.[TOP]
Masters/Bachelors Degree
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Is it possible to apply before I have received all of my grades for my Master’s?
It is not possible to start the programme without having a fully completed an MA or MSc. If you can submit your grades list, and indicate completion before the end of the month of the application deadline, we can take your application on board for review. Nevertheless, we will not be able to accept you in the programme yet. In case you are invited to participate, you will need to send us the degree and completion certificate.
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What are the required documents concerning the grades of my Bachelor and Master?
We need the transcript with the grades, a document explaining the grading scale (if it is not on your transcript already), as well as a copy of the degree certificates.
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How do I get certified copies of bachelor’s and master’s diplomas and grades?
You will need to ask your higher educational institute, to either offer you a certified copy, or you can ask them to send us a direct confirmation / copy of your certificates. Universities should freely offer you the confirmation, but they might have individual ways of offering this confirmation to you or us. So, the best approach is to check with them, to find out how they prefer to handle this.
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I have original copies of my certificates. Will you accept if I make copies and certify with a notary public for uploading with my application?
For the application, you can just send us regular copies but if you are accepted onto the programme, we will need certified copies.
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Does my earned degree fulfil the requirements to apply for the programme?
Generally, if you have a completed Bachelor’s degree and a completed Master’s degree (with the grade certificates), that is sufficient. We will submit those documents to the Dutch ministry of education, which approves your entrance to the PhD programme. Your admittance to the programme is conditional upon the ministry approving your participation. If for some reason you believe that your MA or MSc is not a generally accepted degree, please send the pdf documents toour PhD office (phdprogramme@merit.unu.edu). We will verify your eligibility.
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What is meant by an upload of a degree, a certificate and a grading scheme?
The degree is a certified copy of the degree from your university. In case you do not have such a copy, your university can offer you one or send one directly to us. We need these documents to ensure access to the PhD programme in Maastricht and we are legally not able to allow you access to the programme unless this certified degree is approved by the Dutch ministry of education. A certificate is a grade certificate, where we can see which courses you followed during your BA and MA, and the grades you scored. The grading scheme informs us if your grades were A-B-C, a scale 1-5, 1-10, 1-20 and at what grade you pass/fail. The last two documents are used by our academic committee to select candidates.
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In case I hold a research master, can I apply for entrance in year two?
The proposal is the main document on which we base the decision of whether we allow access into year two.
You thus cannot apply for year two of the programme – you will always have to participate in the first workshop in year one. During this workshop, we can assess your research skills and capacity, and review your proposal. For about 5% of the new entrants, we waive participation in workshops 2-3 of year one and allow them to start in year two faster (with only paying tuition for one year). However, in order to achieve that, you do need to submit a sufficient full proposal in or after the first workshops in September or November, and based on this we can allow you access to year two in June.
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Can I submit requested original degrees past the deadline?
We understand that it is sometimes hard to send us originally certified degrees. We need these in order to be able to formally register you in the programme. Generally, universities will send them directly to us, if you request them to send us a certified copy.
For the selection process, after the deadline, we will need readable pdf uploaded degrees and grade certificates. For registering you later, we will need the certified documents, but we can process your application if your documents are available in pdf format.
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What studies/ background do I need to apply?
The programme is a multidisciplinary programme. We accept applicants with a completed master degree in economics, social science, political science, public policy or public health. We have developed the programme to account for all different disciplines, and allow fellows to write a dissertation within the discipline they prefer.
However, in order to be able to start a PhD programme in Maastricht, your master diploma needs to be accepted by the Dutch government. So irrespective of your work experience, previous research experience or other relevant skills, we need you to have a valid master degree, and you need to have finished the master.
In addition, we need you to be interested in a topic that our institute considers among the core topics of our interest. Please check out our research themes, or the list of working papers and dissertations, to find out more about the topics we cover in our research.[TOP]
Tuition and Scholarship
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How much does a dual career PhD cost and how long does it take?
The programme is tuition based. In year one, tuition is 9000 euro. In the subsequent years, tuition is 7000 euro per year. Total tuition thus depends on the number of years you are enrolled.
How long it takes to obtain your PhD depends on your previous expertise, research experience and time available to work on the PhD; it is thus not possible to indicate a term. The fastest part-time fellow we have had completed their PhD in 3 years, the longest part-time fellow we have had graduated in 8 years. Fellows remained enrolled until graduation under 3 conditions: 1) they are willing and able to pay tuition, 2) there is progress and 3) supervisors are willing to supervise them.
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Is there any scholarship offered for dual career PhD fellows?
There is no scholarship offered, but candidates can find and apply for scholarships themselves.[TOP]
Schedule
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Can I select the dates of the full-time presence weeks during the first nine months?
The workshop periods are known – 2 weeks in September, 2 weeks in February – and indicated on the website well in advance. Also the higher year workshop periods are known. You cannot choose your own workshop periods, and you cannot choose your own starting moment.
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Are there any classes/courses during the dual career PhD track?
Yes.[TOP]
Supervisors/Publications
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Is there a list of supervisors and their respective research fields?
All members of the institute with a PhD (Dr.) degree can supervise PhD fellows. A list of the staff members and research fellows and their research interests is available on the website. The publications of all staff are available online and freely downloadable, and you can search by staff member to find out if the publications are related to your research interest.
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Can a professor or expert from my home university or country be on my supervisory team?
According to the official Dutch rules, a supervisory team should consist of at least a full or associate professor from a Dutch university, your promotor and your primary supervisor. In addition to your promotor, you can have a co-supervisor(s) who should at least hold a PhD but not necessarily be a full or associate professor. Your supervisory team can consist of 3 people, including the promotor.
This means it is possible to have members on your supervisory team who are not working in Maastricht. They need a PhD degree from an institution recognised by the Dutch state. Your primary promotor must also agree to work with them on the supervisory team. In practice, discussions about your supervisory team will occur after you have been accepted in the programme's second year.[TOP]