From registering, progress monitoring up to and including the PhD defence procedure, all these processes run through Hora Finita. The system offers guidance in completing and fulfilling all mandatory aspects in your promotional trajectory. You’ll be notified by Hora Finita when you need to take action.
Who works with Hora Finita?
The PhD candidate, the (co)supervisors, the dean, the administrative secretariat, Graduate Schools Officers and the Beadle Office each have a specific role in Hora Finita.
Important to know
- You can only log in to Hora Finita with your staff login.
Registration in Hora Finita
The registration process starts as soon as you’re employed (or have received a hospitality agreement) by the university at a faculty.
- For your registration, you need to have certain documents (required by your faculty) ready for upload, including a copy of your diploma and your research proposal.
- Once your graduate school has received a notification that you are visible in Hora Finita, you will receive an email from Hora Finita with the request to complete your registration.
- Manually complete at least all required fields.
- When finished, click on the ‘Submit’ button.
After submission of the registration form, the application for a PhD track must be approved by the (first) supervisor, the Beadle’s Office or the Admissions Office, the Graduate School Officer and the faculty dean. The whole registration process, including the different approvals of all roles, can take several weeks – and longer in more complex situations. Except for non-Dutch degrees, as the verification process of the Admissions Office takes longer to complete.
Note for those adding non-Dutch degrees:
- The Admissions Office will validate your diploma as soon as the registration is converted to a trajectory. You’ll be admitted under certain conditions.
- If you select the diploma type non-Dutch degree, you’re required to upload a language test and cv (issued by the Admissions Office).
- Another prerequisite is to upload a translation when one of the degrees is in another language than Dutch, English, German, French and/or Spanish.
Overview of your PhD track
After completing the registration process, you’ll gain access to your personal dashboard with an overview of the progress of your PhD track. On the dashboard, you’ll see your project planning, tasks, (training)activities, progress meetings and the PhD checklist. Most of the sections contain a link to a more detailed view.
Some useful features:
- You can add new training activities by searching through a catalogue, equipped with training activities of different faculties. By clicking on one of the training activities in the dropdown list, the system will automatically provide activity type, title, and the number of ECs rated.
- Your supervisor will automatically receive a monthly email asking for approval of your automatic or manually (e.g., external courses or conferences) added activities.
- Under ‘My added tasks’ you have the possibility to keep up a more detailed planning.
- For every planned meeting, Hora Finita will send a reminder to all participants one month in advance.
- You can (optionally) upload relevant documents (e.g., a chapter that needs to be revised) for a meeting. These documents are exclusively visible for the participants of an interview. To document specific agreements made during a meeting, you can add remarks in the field ‘comment’ under ‘Properties’.
- By clicking on the tab ‘Print progress file’, a PDF-version of the progress report is immediately saved to your computer. This document consists of some of your personal details, PhD project, list of tasks, training activities and PhD checklist. An example of using this document is in the yearly progress meetings.
Training and Supervision Plan (TSP)
A PhD track consists of the following components: conducting research, educational activities and in some cases teaching activities. These components are formulated within the Training and Supervision Plan (TSP), the personal agreement between you and your supervisors. The TSP needs to be submitted within three months after the start date of the PhD track. Once submitted, the warning message in Hora Finita will disappear.
Under the tab 'Research phase’, you can upload your signed TSP. You can keep your TSP always updated, even when a previous version has been approved.
Portfolio
The section ‘Portfolio’ gives an overview of the current status of the obtained EC’s. You can see a full overview of your activities or add additional activities. New activities can be added by searching through the catalogue or you can enter non-EUR courses manually. To get an activity approved and, therefore, receive the rated EC’s, you must upload a proof of attendance (e.g., a certificate). This will mainly be needed for external courses and conferences.
Preparing for the PhD defence
The graduation process requires you to go through a number of steps, like starting the process, submitting the manuscript, submitting the title page, requesting a defence date. Click on ‘read more’ to see a brief overview of the timeline for the graduation process. View the Manual PhD candidate for a more comprehensive timeline with a description of the responsibilities of all those involved in the PhD track.
24 weeks prior to defence
Start the graduation process under the tab ‘PhD ceremony request’. The PhD ceremony can be requested once the manuscript is finished and meets the preconditions of the Doctoral Regulations. After completion of the form, click ‘Request PhD ceremony’. Hora Finita will then automatically send an email to the supervisors of your PhD track to assess the manuscript.
20 weeks prior to defence
Once the manuscript is approved by the supervisors, you can contact the Beadle’s Office and discuss a date for the PhD ceremony. The Beadle’s Office is responsible for planning the data of the ceremony and communicate the definitive date to those involved in the PhD track. The Beadle’s Office can be contact by email: pedel@eur.nl or by phone + 31 10 408 10 06. ISS employees can contact the PhD Support Office (pst@iss.nl).
Once the candidate, the (co)supervisors, and the Full Doctoral Committee confirm their presence on one of the reserved dates, please email this to pedel@eur.nl or in case you’re an ISS employee to pst@iss.nl.
18 weeks prior to defence
- Submit the title page – After you have uploaded the manuscript in Hora Finita, you are expected to submit you title page. The title page has to be uploaded under the tab ‘Submit title page’. By clicking ’Title page example’ the system can automatically generate an example title page.
- Submit the propositions – It’s mandatory for PhD candidates to submit eleven propositions for their manuscript. This has to be done as soon as possible following the approval of their manuscript. The propositions can be uploaded under the tab ‘Submit propositions’. The propositions will be assessed by the Beadle’s Office (according to the doctoral regulations) and your supervisors (quality control).
- Start the printing procedure
If your manuscript has changed after receiving comments from the Doctoral Subcommittee, or you’ve uploaded the wrong version of your manuscript, Hora Finita gives you the opportunity to upload a new version in the system under ‘Upload modified manuscript’. Your supervisor will receive an email with the news that a new version of the manuscript has been uploaded. Note that only the latest version of the manuscript is shown in the assessment screen, although all versions will still be available in Hora Finita.
5 weeks prior to defence
Printing the final PhD thesis after approval on the manuscript by the doctoral committee (only if the title page and propositions are approved and the ceremony date is final).
After you submitted your PhD thesis through Hora Finita to the University Library, you can submit your request of the reimbursement for printing costs.
1 hour prior to defence
You’ll prepare for your PhD defence in the ‘zweetkamertje’.
Uploading the final (embargo) thesis to the library and the repository
Via the tab ‘Library’, please submit the electronic version of your doctoral thesis together with information about the thesis and author(s), and the consent form to the University Library. This is only possible after your manuscript has been approved by the Doctoral Subcommittee. You need the following documents:
- Consent form: the format is available via the tab Library
- Doctoral dissertation, including the title page
- A separate title page
- Eleven propositions (your approved propositions are already submitted to this form)
- It is possible to upload additional files (e.g. embargo document)
Note that if articles of your doctoral dissertation are (temporarily) placed under embargo, an additional version without these articles should be uploaded in Hora Finita.
The University Library must publish the complete doctoral dissertation as soon as possible and, in any case, no later than three months following the conclusion of the defence ceremony. Click here for a general impression of this process.