About the programme

The ILLC PhD programme is designed to support and guide PhD candidates in their track to become highly qualified scientific researchers in the areas described by the institute's research mission. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the ILLC, we host PhD candidates employed at the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Humanities, as well as PhD candidates receiving external funding. The PhD programme was founded in order to treat PhD candidates with varying sources of funding as uniformly as possible and to offer a well-balanced training programme tailored towards their specific needs.

The institute's research mission.

All PhD trajectories at the ILLC are centred around an individual research alignment between the PhD candidate and their supervisors. In this context, the first objective of the ILLC's PhD programme is to enhance this individual research alignment and help guide the PhD candidates towards the successful completion of their PhD project. The ILLC PhD Programme has several tasks, ranging from organizing a well-balanced training programme, performing quality checks, offering assistance in practical matters, mediating in case of problems, as well as offering relevant information. This website is used as an interface by which up-to-date information about the PhD candidates' rights and duties and the ILLC's expectations (both scientific and procedural) is provided.

  • PhD track

    PhD candidates at the ILLC follow a regulated PhD track, outlined in the section Curriculum. This track comes with a clear time-line and involves both a scientific and a procedural component. The scientific component deals with a time-line for research and education. The procedural component contains moments when an assessment or evaluation has to take place as well as administrative paperwork surrounding exemption, admission and graduation. One of the tasks of the ILLC PhD programme is to offer the ILLC PhD candidates and their supervisors all the necessary information about these matters.

    The PhD Curriculum

  • Training

    Via the ILLC PhD training programme, PhD candidates are given the opportunity to benefit from a rich scientific programme as well as a newly developed transferable skills programme. The ILLC PhD Programme organizes a large part of the transferable skills programme within the ILLC, in order to guarantee that these courses are geared specifically towards the background expertise and needs of the ILLC PhD candidates. The scientific programme includes the advanced courses of the ILLC's Master of Logic, as well as a variety of additional academic courses that are available at neighbouring institutions, national research schools, and international summer schools.

  • Facilities

    The ILLC PhD Programme offers a number of facilities for its PhD candidates. In particular, this includes access to an individual workspace, assistance for new foreign PhD candidates in finding suitable accommodation, access to a travel and training budget, and last but not least: a financial bonus for all candidates who complete their PhD track within the agreed time at the ILLC.

  • Quality

    The ILLC ensures the quality of its PhD programme in a number of different ways, starting with the PhD candidate's assessment interview and annual evaluations during which matters involving supervision, research, teaching, education, organisation and administration are discussed. Secondly, the PhD training programme, education and work environment of the PhD candidates are evaluated on an annual basis via the PhD Programme eValuation Committee (PVC). This committee operates independently from the ILLC PhD Programme and compiles an annual report based on individual interviews with current ILLC PhD candidates. Third, the director of the institute and the director of the ILLC PhD Programme hold regular meetings with the ILLC PhD council, whose members are current PhD candidates representing the ILLC PhD community, in order to discuss issues regarding the programme and the welfare of PhD candidates.

    PhD Programme eValuation Committee 

    ILLC PhD council