New Radboudumc PhD thesis guidelines & Rules composition Manuscript Committee

Radboudumc PhD thesis guidelines

The new PhD guidelines replace the current 2019 guidelines and are applicable to anyone pursuing a doctoral degree within the medical faculty (so also PhD candidates that participate in the Donders Graduate school). The guidelines are available on our website and in pdf. As in the previous guidelines, it is emphasized that the focus should be on quality rather than quantity. It is of course up to the PhD (co-)supervisors, and later the Manuscript Committee, to assess and monitor this quality. 

Purpose of Radboudumc guidelines

Because there is a lot of variation in PhD theses between different faculties, the Radboud University Doctorate regulations only briefly describe the requirements of the PhD thesis. Therefore, specific Radboudumc guidelines are developed to provide clarity to all involved, such as to the PhD candidate and PhD (co-)supervisors but also to the members of the Manuscript Committee, Cum Laude Committee and Doctoral Examination Board.

It is very important to maintain the high quality of our Dutch PhD theses, but in addition, like the other UMCs that are aiming for this, we need to shorten our current PhD duration (Radboudumc average is 5,5 years). Therefore we want to prevent as much as possible 1) that PhD candidates' contracts must be extended and 2) that PhD candidates have to complete the PhD thesis in their own time after their contract has expired. This also contributes to the well-being of our PhD candidates.

Composition Manuscript Committee

The Doctorate regulations of the Radboud University describe the rules for the composition of the Manuscript Committee. In order to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, Radboudumc maintains some additional rules that are described in the attached document and are also available on our website  and in pdf.