Vrije Universiteit Brussel

for prospective
PHD students

• Central PhD Office
• What is a PhD?
• Admission requirements
• Funding
• Finding a subject and a supervisor
• Application & Enrolment

for Phd students

• Regulations and forms
• Progress Monitoring
• Joint PhD
• Defence
• Ombudsperson for PhD students
• Publication and Technology Transfer
• Newsletter for Junior Researchers

doctoral schools

• Doctoral Training Programme
• The 3 Doctoral Schools
• Workshops & Seminars

Finding a supervisor and a subject

Finding a research subject

Your application should contain a research subject. Your exact title does not have to be fixed yet, but you need to have a good idea of the field of research of your PhD.

Many PhD students continue in their PhD on the same subject as their master thesis and stay in the same research group. Often the same professor becomes the supervisor. This is certainly not mandatory.

Research groups often work on projects for which they hire researchers. These vacancies can be found on the pages of the Staff Department or on the pages of the concerning faculty/research group.

On the other hand there are many research subjects for which funding is not available yet. For several of them, however, you can find professors willing to take on the supervision. Click here to see a list of such subjects.

To see which expertise we have at the VUB and which professors are working on which topics, you can use the search engine.

And here you can find a list of all the research groups.

 

Who is eligible to be a supervisor?

Your supervisor will guide you through the whole process. It is therefore important that you find a supervisor who has the right expertise.

A doctoral thesis is written under the guidance and responsibility of at least one Professor who is an active member of the Senior Academic Staff at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel ("ZAP" function ). Only professors of the VUB can be the main promoter of a PhD project.

However, this professor can be assisted by one or more co-supervisors, e.g. an external co-supervisor who is a professor not affiliated with the VUB; a co-supervisor who is a professor emeritus of the VUB; a co-supervisor who, though not a professor, holds a doctoral degree.

PhD students with an assistant position ("AAP") also have a teaching assignment. Bare in mind that the professor whom you are assisting, does not necessarily have to be your supervisor.

 

Finding a supervisor

We strongly advise you to increase your chances of success by going through our research pages, to see whether you can find a match between your research interests and research at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. You can browse the university’s web pages or use the search engine available here.

Please be aware it is not an easy task to find a supervisor. Professors receive many applications and they will judge upon several criteria: your academic qualifications (e.g. study results), your field of study, your research project, funding, ...

So, when contacting a potential supervisor, make sure to be as complete as possible and add a research proposal and a cv.

If you are still looking for funding, the links on this page might help you.

 

The guidance by the supervisor

The supervisor(s) is (are) required to guide the PhD student through the entire process and to offer encouragement and support as he/she works to complete a doctoral thesis. The PhD student is required to inform the supervisor(s) regularly of the progress made on his/her doctoral thesis.

The Research Council has developed a deontological code for all academic staff supervising a PhD dissertation: the Profile of a good supervisor. The profile has been translated into English, and can be found here.

 

 

Your supervisor is retiring

Because a PhD process takes several years, it is quite possible that your supervisor is finishing his term as active professor (ZAP) at the VUB, and retires before your doctoral thesis is defended. As professor emeritus he/she can stay your supervisor, but you will need to find a new active VUB-professor as second supervisor.

 

Back to top