Requirements

• Courses: this can be VLAG courses but can also be courses organised by other graduate schools in The Netherlands and/or abroad. In case of a poster presentation at a course 0.5 extra ECTS credit points are awarded.
• Courses followed online: Coursera and EdX offer an interesting panel of online courses for free. It is possible to include them in the TSP if:
  - your supervisor approves you take this course;
  - the course is minimally at MSc level or preferably at graduate level;
  - you have to complete the course and proof this completion by a certificate.
• Meetings: meetings of 'learned societies' (such as NWO-Nutrition, NWO-Chemistry and NWO Technology Foundation) also count as discipline specific activities. Project meetings of EU-projects can also be included under this heading.
• Training periods at other laboratories: in case the training periods should have the specific aim to learn new techniques.In general 50% of the period spent at other laboratories will be honoured, up to a maximum of 6 ECTS.
• Conferences: you will get credits for attending conferences. In case of a presentation at a congress (oral presentation or poster) 1.0 extra ECTS credit points are awarded. For posters this only applies for new original posters.

General courses deal with various issues relevant for the professional and personal development of PhD candidates. This category involves competence strengthening courses. Wageningen based graduate schools (WGS) have joined their efforts in coordinating and streamlining the course diversity and quality.

Examples of general courses organised by VLAG or WGS are: Career perspectives, Scientific writing, Supervision of undergraduates, Presentation techniques, Ethics, Didactics and the VLAG PhD week (introduction course for PhD candidates).

Further on a wide variety of courses is offered by other universities, as well as by other (inter)national graduate schools.

Examples of other activities are:

• Preparation of research proposal (4 ECTS credits)
• Scientific meetings, seminars, colloquia organised within a department/research group (max. 3 ECTS credits)
• Literature study programmes: Credit points can be awarded to literature study programmes which are organised and supervised at departmental level (max. 3 ECTS credits).
• MSc courses: MSc courses can be included up to a maximum of 6 credit points. They should be of relevance to the PhD study and you have to pass the exam.
• International PhD excursions
• Organisation of international PhD excursions (1.0 ECTS credits)