Dutch students no longer want to attain a PhD

However, the university should be wary of poor recruitment policies, professor Koppelaar warns.

“After completing my civil engineering course at the technical university of Wuhan, I worked for several years as a real estate developer. In 1995 I was allowed to attend a course in the Netherlands. One of my teachers was attached to the department of real estate and project management at TU Delft. I asked him whether he would consider taking me on as a PhD student in his department. To me it seemed a unique opportunity, as Chinese universities at that time did not offer courses that included the financial side of building projects. After all, until 1986, all real estate was state owned.” In his office at the faculty of Architecture, Qing Xu explains how he found his way to TU Delft and that he had to put together his own research proposal. Supported by his former professor in the department to which he had applied, he was given a research place.

Xu was one of many young foreign PhD students who have contributed to the rapid internationalisation of the university’s research staff. From 1993 to the present, the percentage of foreign PhD students has increased from thirteen to over thirty percent. One of the factors contributing to the dramatic increase in foreign research students is the shortage of Dutch candidates for research places. Particularly departments that offer courses associated with e-commerce are affected by the huge attractions of the business world. “Dutch students no longer want to attain a PhD,” sighs Professor Henk Koppelaar, who is professor of knowledge technology at the faculty of Information Technology and Systems.

Sandwich

Koppelaar has supervised foreign PhD students for a number of years. “My experiences are very positive,” he remarks, “but I have to distinguish between those students who have applied on their own initiative and those who have been recruited. People who have applied on their own initiative have often battled against the odds to get here; they are motivated and wish to prove themselves. However, I have also been to Moscow to recruit PhD students. A number of candidates provided me with curricula that only listed straight A’s. These were not always the most talented students. Membership of the right political party can guarantee very high marks. The majority of the thirty percent foreign PhD candidates currently employed by TU Delft have applied of their own accord. They’re fine. But the TU’s recruitment campaigns can easily be misled in other cultures!”

The university’s governing body, however, believes there are many opportunities to recruit talented foreign researchers successfully. According to Joost Groot Kormelink, of the office of Education, Research and Student policies, TU Delft will embark on collaborative programmes with a number of overseas universities. At those universities PhD students can be recruited and pre-selected locally. Groot Kormelink anticipates a further internationalisation of the research staff. “Sandwich courses will be introduced: PhD students at collaborating universities will come to the TU for only two years.” He also believes that the TU internet site will attract an increasing number of PhD candidates. “The website publishes vacancies world-wide. That has already resulted in many applications from outside Europe.”

Also within Europe, the new means of communication facilitate contacts between universities. Antonio Martins, a Portuguese environmental technology graduate of Aveiro and Lisbon, applied via e-mail for a PhD placement to his current supervisor at the department of environmental technology in Delft. Martin’s choice of TU Delft was based on his professor’s advice and a number of interesting articles from Delft that he had read during his course in Portugal. Like Xu, Martins put together his own research proposal.

Assistant

Martins’ research at TU Delft is financed by the Portuguese government. He earns more in Delft than he would do as a PhD student in Portugal. Martins: “As a researcher abroad not only my salary is better. It is also beneficial to my future in Portugal because the work of international researchers is more highly regarded than that of people working in Portugal.” This is partly justifiable, he believes: “The labs here are better equipped. If you need anything in Portugal you have to be patient. Here things are organised in no time. Furthermore, I am able to work with people who are leading figures in my field of research.”

Martins’ foreign colleagues agree with his appreciation of the research conditions in Delft. PhD student Xu mentions something western co-researchers take for granted: “In China scientific information is less accessible than it is here. Of course, internet makes more information available, but many publications are more easily obtained in the Netherlands.” The generous PhD salary at TU Delft facilitates the research, according to Xu: “In China it is not easy to make a living from working at a university. A lot of time is wasted on finding ways to support oneself. The private sector pays quite well, but if you want to do research, you go abroad.”

The good salary doesn’t only attract students from less prosperous countries, as Mark Frahn, a PhD student who is attached to the research group radiation chemistry of the Interfaculty Reactor Institute, explains. Frahn, originally from the U.S., spent a year as a research student at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, before embarking on a new research project in Delft. Comparing the PhD programmes in both countries, he favours the Dutch system. “Inthe States a PhD student is obliged to take certain courses for which he is also expected to pay. When you are not attending a university in your home state, education is very expensive, researchers need to take out student loans. Furthermore, at American universities you are often expected to teach and grade exams. Being the ‘professor’s assistant’ is a very time consuming business. As an experiment, Frahn is the first foreign research student to teach at the IRI because he speaks such good Dutch.

Coffee

Although in Delft there are no compulsory courses, foreign students find that, particularly in the early stages of their research, a lot of time has to be spent adjusting to a new culture and its accompanying bureaucracy. To identify problems experienced by PhD students from abroad, the staff unit OOS and the association of graduate students Promood are carrying out a large scale survey.

Whilst awaiting the findings, Groot Kormelink of OOS contends that overseas PhD students might benefit from having a mentor to introduce them to TU Delft and the Dutch culture. “Depending on their origins, on arrival in Delft research students can experience a culture shock. A foreign student might not be acustommed to informality and is therefore probably not going to ask his research supervisor: ‘can you drop in later, Jan?’. A mentor can fulfil a social role by taking the student for a coffee.”

According to Groot Kormelink, TU Delft should certainly provide students with better information before they arrive in the Netherlands. Many useful guides are available, such as the ‘Expat workkit’, which contain information about taxes, contracts and visas. Every PhD student should be provided with one in advance.

However, one shouldn’t generalise about the needs of researchers from abroad. As the findings of the survey will undoubtedly indicate, each individual case is different. It is a mistake to assume, for example, that the Chinese will have many difficulties adjusting to life in the Netherlands. Xu, of the faculty of Architecture explains: “In many countries, the Chinese embassy has an extensive network of contacts. When I arrived in Delft, I was therefore able to contact the members of the three hundred strong Chinese community here. They helped me by finding accommodation and translating letters. The only general need of all foreign students is the facilities to carry out research at the highest level.”

Translation by Alice Beurze

One in three current PhD students at TU Delft is from abroad. The status, the salary and the facilities in Delft attract many foreign students. However, the university should be wary of poor recruitment policies, professor Koppelaar warns.

“After completing my civil engineering course at the technical university of Wuhan, I worked for several years as a real estate developer. In 1995 I was allowed to attend a course in the Netherlands. One of my teachers was attached to the department of real estate and project management at TU Delft. I asked him whether he would consider taking me on as a PhD student in his department. To me it seemed a unique opportunity, as Chinese universities at that time did not offer courses that included the financial side of building projects. After all, until 1986, all real estate was state owned.” In his office at the faculty of Architecture, Qing Xu explains how he found his way to TU Delft and that he had to put together his own research proposal. Supported by his former professor in the department to which he had applied, he was given a research place.

Xu was one of many young foreign PhD students who have contributed to the rapid internationalisation of the university’s research staff. From 1993 to the present, the percentage of foreign PhD students has increased from thirteen to over thirty percent. One of the factors contributing to the dramatic increase in foreign research students is the shortage of Dutch candidates for research places. Particularly departments that offer courses associated with e-commerce are affected by the huge attractions of the business world. “Dutch students no longer want to attain a PhD,” sighs Professor Henk Koppelaar, who is professor of knowledge technology at the faculty of Information Technology and Systems.

Sandwich

Koppelaar has supervised foreign PhD students for a number of years. “My experiences are very positive,” he remarks, “but I have to distinguish between those students who have applied on their own initiative and those who have been recruited. People who have applied on their own initiative have often battled against the odds to get here; they are motivated and wish to prove themselves. However, I have also been to Moscow to recruit PhD students. A number of candidates provided me with curricula that only listed straight A’s. These were not always the most talented students. Membership of the right political party can guarantee very high marks. The majority of the thirty percent foreign PhD candidates currently employed by TU Delft have applied of their own accord. They’re fine. But the TU’s recruitment campaigns can easily be misled in other cultures!”

The university’s governing body, however, believes there are many opportunities to recruit talented foreign researchers successfully. According to Joost Groot Kormelink, of the office of Education, Research and Student policies, TU Delft will embark on collaborative programmes with a number of overseas universities. At those universities PhD students can be recruited and pre-selected locally. Groot Kormelink anticipates a further internationalisation of the research staff. “Sandwich courses will be introduced: PhD students at collaborating universities will come to the TU for only two years.” He also believes that the TU internet site will attract an increasing number of PhD candidates. “The website publishes vacancies world-wide. That has already resulted in many applications from outside Europe.”

Also within Europe, the new means of communication facilitate contacts between universities. Antonio Martins, a Portuguese environmental technology graduate of Aveiro and Lisbon, applied via e-mail for a PhD placement to his current supervisor at the department of environmental technology in Delft. Martin’s choice of TU Delft was based on his professor’s advice and a number of interesting articles from Delft that he had read during his course in Portugal. Like Xu, Martins put together his own research proposal.

Assistant

Martins’ research at TU Delft is financed by the Portuguese government. He earns more in Delft than he would do as a PhD student in Portugal. Martins: “As a researcher abroad not only my salary is better. It is also beneficial to my future in Portugal because the work of international researchers is more highly regarded than that of people working in Portugal.” This is partly justifiable, he believes: “The labs here are better equipped. If you need anything in Portugal you have to be patient. Here things are organised in no time. Furthermore, I am able to work with people who are leading figures in my field of research.”

Martins’ foreign colleagues agree with his appreciation of the research conditions in Delft. PhD student Xu mentions something western co-researchers take for granted: “In China scientific information is less accessible than it is here. Of course, internet makes more information available, but many publications are more easily obtained in the Netherlands.” The generous PhD salary at TU Delft facilitates the research, according to Xu: “In China it is not easy to make a living from working at a university. A lot of time is wasted on finding ways to support oneself. The private sector pays quite well, but if you want to do research, you go abroad.”

The good salary doesn’t only attract students from less prosperous countries, as Mark Frahn, a PhD student who is attached to the research group radiation chemistry of the Interfaculty Reactor Institute, explains. Frahn, originally from the U.S., spent a year as a research student at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, before embarking on a new research project in Delft. Comparing the PhD programmes in both countries, he favours the Dutch system. “Inthe States a PhD student is obliged to take certain courses for which he is also expected to pay. When you are not attending a university in your home state, education is very expensive, researchers need to take out student loans. Furthermore, at American universities you are often expected to teach and grade exams. Being the ‘professor’s assistant’ is a very time consuming business. As an experiment, Frahn is the first foreign research student to teach at the IRI because he speaks such good Dutch.

Coffee

Although in Delft there are no compulsory courses, foreign students find that, particularly in the early stages of their research, a lot of time has to be spent adjusting to a new culture and its accompanying bureaucracy. To identify problems experienced by PhD students from abroad, the staff unit OOS and the association of graduate students Promood are carrying out a large scale survey.

Whilst awaiting the findings, Groot Kormelink of OOS contends that overseas PhD students might benefit from having a mentor to introduce them to TU Delft and the Dutch culture. “Depending on their origins, on arrival in Delft research students can experience a culture shock. A foreign student might not be acustommed to informality and is therefore probably not going to ask his research supervisor: ‘can you drop in later, Jan?’. A mentor can fulfil a social role by taking the student for a coffee.”

According to Groot Kormelink, TU Delft should certainly provide students with better information before they arrive in the Netherlands. Many useful guides are available, such as the ‘Expat workkit’, which contain information about taxes, contracts and visas. Every PhD student should be provided with one in advance.

However, one shouldn’t generalise about the needs of researchers from abroad. As the findings of the survey will undoubtedly indicate, each individual case is different. It is a mistake to assume, for example, that the Chinese will have many difficulties adjusting to life in the Netherlands. Xu, of the faculty of Architecture explains: “In many countries, the Chinese embassy has an extensive network of contacts. When I arrived in Delft, I was therefore able to contact the members of the three hundred strong Chinese community here. They helped me by finding accommodation and translating letters. The only general need of all foreign students is the facilities to carry out research at the highest level.”

Translation by Alice Beurze