financial support for the participation of VLAG PhD students in external courses

One of the issues raised during the 2nd visit of the VLAG International Advisory Board was the course diversity within the curriculum offered by the graduate school. In view of the large and diverse PhD community and broad scientific field covered VLAG cannot offer all the courses needed by its PhD students.
In general, and especially in case of limited choice, the PhD students are encouraged to attend courses organised by other parties in the Netherlands, or abroad. When this happens the PhD student can be confronted with course fees that are much higher than those for courses offered by VLAG. The International Advisory Board had advised to develop instruments to remove financial constraints obstructing participation in useful external courses.
In the past VLAG assisted PhD students who reported such situations on an ad-hoc basis. From 2007 onwards the graduate school will provide a budget of € 4000 per year to facilitate the participation in external courses.
When applying for the financial assistance one should keep in mind the following criteria and procedure:

1. The problem described above is not only applicable to those scientific disciplines that are not belonging to the VLAG core. For instance PhD students from Human Nutrition attend NIHES courses, and PhD students from Food Physics attend Rheology courses in Gent.
   In other words all VLAG PhD students can apply for this financial support.
2. VLAG contribution should primarily be used to finance the course fee.
   A contribution to finance travel costs and/or accommodation will only be granted for courses organised by graduate/research schools (or similar organisations) that have agreed on an exchange programme with VLAG (ABS, FOOD, LiFT).
3. VLAG will contribute a maximum of 50% of the course fee in question.
   It is expected that the PhD student, the research group and/or HRM department will cover the other 50%.
4. Only PhD students that have submitted their Training and Supervision Plan (TSP) and who are in year 2 or 3 of their PhD study can apply for the support.
5. A PhD student can make use of this facility once during the PhD period.
6. PhD students applying for this subsidy should provide a written motivation (max. 1 page), a list of completed educational activities and the current status of their educational budget. The request should be signed by the PhD student and the thesis supervisor as a sign that he/she supports the request.

This documentation should be sent to the Graduate School office in hardcopy form.

Postal address:
The Graduate School VLAG
(Internal Post / Bodenummer 184)
P.O. Box 8129
6700 EV Wageningen
The Netherlands