Begeleiding en carrièreperspectief van Nederlandse promovendi

Abstract

Due to organizational changes within Dutch universities, the number of PhD’s has risen immensely over the past twenty years. Where the majority of these PhD’s foresees a future academic career for themselves, only one-third of them will eventually receive a position in academia as a post-doc, followed by assistant professor or professor. Over two-third of the specialized PhD’s will have to find a job elsewhere after their promotion. This qualitative study investigates the attitudes of PhD’s to the supervision they receive concerning their PhD project and their role in the preparation for a future (academic) career. Findings from semi-structured interviews show that PhD’s are generally satisfied with their supervisors concerning availability, reachability, expertise and knowledge about the research project and that they expect autonomy, commitment and personal attention within the master-apprentice relationship. With respect to their future academic career, most PhD’s find it their own responsibility to prepare themselves, but only start doing so in the last year of their PhD. This article concludes by stating that PhD’s are not supervised in the preparation for their career after the promotion, but are confident to find a job which tunes in with their skills and capabilities