Graduate School of Humanities
NWO PhDs in the Humanities
Selection procedure at Leiden University
What is NWO PhDs in the Humanities?
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) each year offers grants for PhD candidates through the funding instrument PhDs in the Humanities. The aim of this funding instrument is to provide research talent with the opportunity to carry out an independent PhD project on their own research topic.
A PhDs in the Humanities grant offers a paid PhD position (4 year, 1.0 fte or 5 years, 0.8 fte) to talented researchers in the field of Humanities, including Archaeology. Applicants can choose their own research topic, and funding is awarded based on the excellence of both the candidate and their research proposal. More information on PhDs in the Humanities can be found on the NWO’s PhDs in the Humanities website, specifically in the call for proposals.
Each humanities faculty in the Netherlands can nominate only a limited number of candidates. Leiden University is entitled to nominate four candidates in even years and five candidates in uneven years. Candidates are put forward by the research institutes of the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Archaeology, in a pre-selection process that has two phases. Below you find the pre-selection procedure for the Faculty of Humanities. Click here for the selection procedure at the Faculty of Archaeology.
Selection procedure Faculty of Humanities
1. Pre-selection at the level of the research institutes, Oct.-Dec.
The first phase of selection takes place at the level of the research institutes of the Faculty of Humanities, together with the interfaculty Africa Study Centre. The research institutes are organised around different disciplines:
- Leiden University Institute for History (LUIH)
- Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL)
- Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS)
- Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS)
- Institute for Philosophy (IPh)
- Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA)
- Africa Study Centre Leiden (ASCL)
Each institute organizes its own pre-selection, in which one to three proposals per institute (depending on the size and financial situation) of the institute will be sent through to the Faculty selection round.
If you are interested in submitting a proposal for the pre-selection round make sure you take the following steps:
- Contact a potential supervisor about your ideas for a proposal. Lists of staff members and their expertise can be found on the institutes’ webpages.
- Draft a research proposal using the application template provided by NWO on The PhDs in the Humanities website.
- Submit the proposal for the institute’s pre-selection round. Please check with the intended supervisor and/or the institute’s management about the specificities of the procedure and deadlines.
2. Pre-selection at Faculty level (Humanities and Archaeology combined), Jan.-Feb.
The second phase of pre-selection is carried out by a committee consisting of the members of the Committee on Academic Practice of Humanities, a member from the Faculty of Archaeology and a member from the Africa Study Centre. From the proposals that are selected by the institutes in phase 1, the committee in its turn selects four or five proposals that may be submitted to NWO for the final selection round.
3. Final selection at NWO level
In the final selection round an NWO-committee will select from the ca. 45 proposals that are submitted from universities throughout the Netherlands. Annually approximately 16 or 17 proposals receive funding. The final round consists of an assessment of the written proposal and an interview of 15 minutes (including a 2-minute pitch of the project) with the committee.