PhD grants to increase by 9.6% as from 1 January 2023

This week, the Board of the University decided to raise the scholarship grant for all PhD scholarship students affiliated with the UG in 2023 by an extra 5.4% as from 1 January. This brings the total indexation since before September 2022 to 9.6%. The full grants will therefore amount to €2,465 gross and €2,092 net (currently €2,339 gross and €2,016 net).

In addition, PhD scholarship students will receive an extra one-off gross amount in January 2023 to compensate for their foregone income in 2022 (around €320 net in the case of a full grant).

On 6 September, the Board of the University had already decided to increase the full grant for PhD scholarship students by 4.0%. This deviates from the pattern followed in previous years to use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by Statistics Netherlands in April (9.6%). A higher percentage would have resulted in hundreds of international scholarship PhD students falling under a different tax regime at that point, as their top-up remuneration would have exceeded the threshold of a maximum of 40% of the minimum wage. This could have had adverse fiscal effects for them.

The UG is the only university in the Netherlands that is additionally compensating international scholarship PhD students in this way. The guiding principle for this is that all scholarship students will receive the same net compensation per month. We find ourselves in a peculiar time in which prices and inflation are increasing. The financial consequences for the UG are substantial and require careful consideration when making decisions about expenses. As a result of this increase, the total costs for the Board of the University and for the faculties will rise by around €880,000 on an annual basis.

The new taxation plan will come into effect in January 2023 and the minimum wage will rise considerably. This will lead to a new situation that will provide room for a second raise of the grants. The communication on the intention to review what will be possible in January 2023 could have been better.

The intention is to use the April index when indexing in September 2023. This is the last indexation that will be applied within the PhD Scholarship Experiment, which will be ended by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science as from 1 September 2024. If, due to unforeseen circumstances, it is not possible to enforce this index, then the index that will indeed be enforced will be specified.