Universiteit Leiden

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Centre for the Arts in Society

Admission

Find out how the admission procedures for PhD candidates at LUCAS are structured.

Admission Procedure: Employed and Contract PhD Candidates

If you are an employed PhD candidate, you have either succesfully applied for a paid PhD position within an externally funded research project, or you have gained funding via NWO’s ‘PhDs in the Humanities’ programme. If you are a contract PhD candidate, you have obtained funding either through NWO’s ‘Doctoral Grants for Teachers’ programme or through a different governmental funding scheme, either in the Netherlands or elsewhere. Once your supervisors have notified the LUCAS bureau about your project and your appointment, you register at the Leiden Graduate School of Humanities, which coordinates the faculty-wide PhD programme. You can find more information on the School’s admission procedure on the Admissions pages.

Admission Procedure: External PhD Candidates

For prospective external PhD candidates, LUCAS has an internal admission procedure, in which prospective external PhD projects are assessed by a committee consisting of 3 research cluster leaders – one from each cluster. (Should both leaders of a given cluster be listed as (co)supervisors for one of the proposed projects, the LUCAS MT recruits other LUCAS colleagues for the committee.)

The admission procedure for external PhD candidates is structured as follows:

  • The annual starting date for external PhD projects is 1 September. (It is not possible to start an external PhD project on other dates.)
  • The annual deadline for submitting your admission dossier to the LUCAS committee is 1 March. The first upcoming deadline is 1 March 2026.
  • Your admission dossier consists of: (1) your CV and (2) a research proposal / reflection document. For the research proposal / reflection document, please use the form provided on this website (see the download link in the top-right corner on the homepage of the PhD programme).
  • The research proposal / reflection document addresses the following:
    • Your motivation to do a PhD project. Why do you wish to pursue this particular research project? How does a PhD project fit within your overall career ambitions, both inside and outside academia?
    • The practical parameters of the project. An external PhD project should be completed within six years. Will this be feasible, also in light of other commitments (most external PhDs have a paid job)? How many days a week do you have available to work on the PhD project? How does this translate into a workplan and schedule for the project?
  • Your main supervisor should send your admission dossier no later than 1 March to the LUCAS committee at lucas@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Please include ‘Admission dossier for external PhD project’  in the subject line.
  • The committee checks the applications for completeness, and carefully considers the CV and research proposal / reflection document, with a focus on project feasibility, clear motivation, and a good match between the proposed project and the candidate’s competencies.
  • No later than 1 April, the committee sends its confidential recommendation to the Academic Director, with whom the responsibility for admitting external PhD students formally rests.
  • On the basis of the committee’s recommendation, the Academic Director, in consultation with the LUCAS MT, determines whether the selected proposals can go through for submission to the Graduate School of Humanities. 
  • The LUCAS bureau, on behalf of the Academic Director, informs candidates and intended supervisors of the selection decisions by 15 April.
  • The selected PhD candidates register at the Graduate School no later than 15 May. The official starting date for their projects is 1 September. It is important that you register on time.

Please note that the Graduate School checks once again whether your admission materials are complete and meet all formal criteria. For example, proof of English language proficiency, in the form of a minimum IELTS or TOEFL score, may be required. It is important that you submit all required admission materials. The responsibility for submitting a complete dossier on time, both to the internal LUCAS committee and to the Graduate School, lies with the candidate.

Resubmitting

Admission dossiers for external PhD projects can be submitted to the LUCAS committee a maximum of 2 times. Projects not selected after the first submission can therefore be resubmitted once (for the next annual deadline).

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