PhD candidates on scholarships present manifesto for equal pay

Doctoral researchers demand end to experiment that results in ‘detrimental conditions’

PhD students at the University of Groningen who were hired under a government-backed experiment have presented a manifesto to the Dutch House of Representatives in which they ask to be given employee status.

The PhD Education experiment, the participants in which are Groningen and Erasmus University Rotterdam, involves PhD candidates receiving scholarships instead of being hired as employees of the universities. The idea is that this should give students more time for their research and more liberty to design their projects. Moreover, universities can take on more PhD students as the institutional costs of retaining them are lower.