What can the GSH do for you?

GSH is...

A body which is semi-autonomous from academic departments and Research Institutes.

It has two directors (an academic and a program director) and an office staff. In addition, various GSH committees function:

• Admission Committee (monitors admissions)
• Advisory Board of the GSH (comprising heads of Research Institutes, GSH directors, monitors PhD progress, reports to Faculty Board)
• PhD Council: regular meetings with GSH directors

What can the GSH do for you?

(a) Admissions of PhD candidates

We provide support for the admission of all PhD candidates: (i) salaried PhD tracks (annual round of appointments); (ii) admissions enquiries and applications from non-salaried PhD applicants (external/international, part-time, scholarship holders).

(b) Monitoring of (ReMA and) PhD progress

We provide support for academic staff when they monitor PhD candidates’ progress e.g. in annual assessments.

(c) Training

We ensure that training is available to all eligible PhD candidates. Some training courses are offered ‘in-house’. Other courses are offered by national Research Schools, who give subject-specific courses in different academic disciplines.

The GSH also ensures that appropriate certification is given to those successfully completing the training program.

(d) Graduation

The GSH ensures that documents which accompany a PhD candidate on his/her final graduation are complete and qualitatively appropriate. The graduation process takes place through the PhD registration system Hora Finita. Please contact the GSH via gsh-groningen rug.nl

(e) Office space

The GSH directly allocates office space to its PhD candidates wherever appropriate. Please contact the GSH via gsh-groningen rug.nl

(f) Support for research initiatives

Within the Humanities, various research initiatives are always underway. One particular set of such initiatives at play at present is the development of bids for funding under the terms of various fellowship or scholarship schemes (Erasmus Mundus PhD tracks, developed jointly with partner universities, are a case in point). What the GSH can do, in the person of its directors, is supply information to those bidding for such funding; we can (and do) also ensure that our own procedures and systems are internationally compatible, so that bids for funding may be more effectively made.

(g) Support for PhD candidate initiatives

e.g. meetings of PhD Council members, social activities, etc.

What the GSH, unfortunately, cannot do for you

• although the GSH is vitally concerned with key areas of academic policy, particularly as this affects graduates, we do not ourselves determine research policy.

• although we are vitally concerned with how PhD candidates and other graduates are admitted, we play no role (other than a purely administrative one) in deciding who is admitted, or on what grounds they are admitted.

• We currently play no role in giving graduates information, except in the most general terms, about such matters as housing or visas; those kinds of query are currently handled by the Immigration Service Desk, which is located in the Academy Building. ReMA-students however should contact the International Office of the Faculty of Arts, about housing and visa issues.

• We do not intervene, except in the provision of and maintenance of the supervision protocol, in the academic relationship between supervisor(s) and PhD candidate.