As one of the faculties that can nominate candidates for the NWO PhDs in the Humanities, ESHCC will select two outstanding PhD proposals (2 fte). To do so, ESHCC will organize an internal selection procedure.
This year, the internal selection procedure is also open to external candidates (ie. students who did not receive their first degree from ESHCC but who wish to pursue a PhD at ESHCC). Prospective supervisors for external PhD candidates are invited to share this document with their networks. There are no special procedures that need to be followed if you are nominating an external candidate. Please be advised that interested candidates can apply a maximum of two times for a PhDs in the Humanities position at ESHCC.
The application process is detailed below (“HOW TO APPLY”). At the first stage, prospective supervisors are invited to send an email to the Research Office (researchoffice@eshcc.eur.nl) and attach the CV and research proposal of the prospective PhD candidate (we do not accept applications from potential PhD candidates themselves). Full professors and associate professors with ius promovendus can serve as first supervisor (promotor), but applications for supervision can be submitted by any tenured faculty member. Contact joshua.mentanko@eur.nl with any questions.
Students who would like to apply and find supervisors can inquire with:
- Prof. Gijsbert Oonk, Research Programme Director (History) (oonk@eshcc.eur.nl)
- Prof. Susanne Janssen, Research Programme Director (Media and Communication) (s.janssen@eshcc.eur.nl)
- Prof. Pauwke Berkers, Research Programme Director (Arts and Culture Studies) (berkers@eshcc.eur.nl)
In addition, we recommend all candidates and supervisors make themselves familiar with the NWO Guidelines to drawing up an application (please be advised that these guidelines are from 2025 but they are expected to remain similar). The candidate’s CV and full research proposal need to be drafted in accordance with the exact criteria set out by NWO.
Please note: although within ESHCC research often involves both the humanities and the social sciences, the PhDs in the Humanities are specifically aimed at the humanities. It is therefore important that the research proposal is written from a humanities perspective and contains clear humanities elements.
If the candidate is successfully awarded a PhD position, they will be offered a four-year contract. They will spend 80% of their time working on their doctoral research and research-related training, whilst the remaining 20% will be spent on teaching tasks and teaching-related training.
HOW TO APPLY
We invite the prospective supervisors to submit the following documents on behalf of the PhD candidate:
- A Curriculum Vitae, redacted in accordance with the NWO Guidelines to drawing up an application; this document should include details on:
- Education
- Honours, prizes, scholarships and grants; please also add: Judicia (grade point average and thesis grade)
- Relevant academic experience
- Other relevant positions
- Output (Please provide references to the output and, if preferred, a motivation for the selection of each of these output items. Output may include refereed articles, non-refereed articles, letters to editors, books, book chapters, pre-prints, patents, working papers, proceedings, conference reports, software, code and open access databases)
- Motivation for doing PhD-research (max 300 words)
- Teaching qualifications and/or teaching experience
- A summary of the proposed research, including title, introduction of topic, research question, methodology and scientific relevance (max 1 A4 page, excluding references).
The deadline for the first stage is 14 November 2025 at 16h00. To submit an application, the supervisors should email all relevant documents (CV and summary of proposed research) to researchoffice@eshcc.eur.nl.
An internal committee will select the applications with the highest potential. All the candidates will be informed about the results of their application by 15 December 2025. A maximum of four candidates will then be invited to draft a full research proposal, in accordance with the NWO guidelines.
The selection committee will include the ESHCC Vice Dean of Research and three members of the Research Management Board (who are not involved as potential supervisors).
Stage two will only involve those candidates (max. 4) who were successful during stage one. These will be invited to submit a full research proposal and have an interview with the ESHCC selection committee.
- The deadline for submitting a full research proposal is 23 January 2026 at 16h00.
- Interviews will take place during the second week of February 2026.
- The ESHCC selection committee will inform all candidates about the outcome of their application by 16 February 2026.
SELECTION CRITERIA
To select the best candidates, the selection committee will apply the following criteria:
- Academic performance of the proposed PhD candidate (cf. NWO criteria PhDs in the Humanities call), incl. Grade Point Average (GPA), grade final thesis (if applicable), scientific output
- Quality of the proposed research (cf. NWO criteria PhDs in the Humanities call)
- Relevance and appropriateness of humanities element in the proposed research