Doctoral Education Programme (DE)
A PhD degree alone is often not enough in today’s competitive job market. You must be equipped with a number of competences too; the creativity and flexibility of a research mind-set is of value to many positions and careers. In order to deepen and broaden these competences, the Graduate School offers you the Doctoral Education – Skills Training Programme.
Your personal development process is kick-started during the PhD Start-up, where you need to think carefully and strategically about your competences and skills. After this you will prepare your tailored DE Plan that covers specific needs and expectations, in consultation with your supervisory team.
Skills Training Programme
The DE Skills Training Programme offers you a range of courses and activities for acquiring transferable skills, to increase disciplinary competences, understanding ethics and integrity and obtain research skills: activities to reach full proficiency in conducting research. Each category within the programme requires a minimum of 15 GS credits which amount to a total of 45 GS credits.
External candidates from 4TU can send an e-mail to graduateschool@tudelft.nl for more information about the current DE courses and register. Current TU Delft PhDs can find more information on Doctoral Education and doctoral courses on the intranet and they can register in Coachview.
Mandatory Courses
There are three mandatory courses for AE PhD candidates in the Transferable category: the PhD Startup (2 GS credits), 1 mandatory credit in Career Development workshop(s), and the Triangle Tuning Programme (2,5 GS credits). If you have any questions about these mandatory courses, please contact the AE Faculty Graduate School.
MOOCS and Online Courses
The guidelines for taking MOOCs and Online courses can be found here.
Research skills will help to reach full proficiency in conducting research. Obtain credits by doing Learning on-the-Job activities and DE Courses. There is a minimum of 5 GS credits that need to be acquired with Learning on-the-Job activities. How to provide proof of completion of Learning on-the-Job activities.
Discipline-related skills will improve your breadth of knowledge and, therefore, add to the quality of your doctoral research.
Examples discipline-related courses
Transferable skills help you improve yourself on a personal level. These skills will also help you to become a better professional, regardless of the career path you choose. Obtain credits by following DE courses or join the Thrive Academy.
Should you need advice about your personal plan, we advise you to talk to your supervisor or/and the HR advisor at your faculty.
DE costs & reimbursement
Attending courses and summer schools can incur costs. If you are working on a funded project, those costs might possibly be covered by the project. In other cases the department will probably have some budget available for this. Contact your supervisor or department manager to discuss reimbursement options prior to registering.
Doctoral education check
After you have obtained at least 45 GS credits in total and at least 15 GS credits per category in your Doctoral Education programme, send an email to the AE Graduateschool via graduateschool-ae@tudelft.nl to ask for a Doctoral Education check. During the Doctoral Education check, the AE Graduate School checks whether you meet all the requirements (please read carefully the document ‘DE Guidelines’ on this page). Only after you meet all the requirements of the Graduate School and the Doctoral Education programme has been approved, you can continue with the preparations for your doctoral defence.
Thesis Defence ceremony
After the completion of the DE programme, you will be awarded a Doctoral Education Certificate at the PhD Thesis Defence ceremony. The certificate states that you have successfully met the requirements of the DE Programme of TU Delft and includes a transcript and background information about the programme.
