Interview with Dr. Paulina Bury

Why did you choose the part-time Ph.D. programme in European Studies at Maastricht University? 

When I started working for the Council of the EU, in an assistant position, I knew that in order to develop intellectually, I had to pursue my previous dream of doing a Ph.D. In the past, I was thinking of doing a full-time Ph.D., but with time and the 2009 financial crisis, I realised that the best choice would be to do a part-time Ph.D. programme. Out of the programmes proposed in Brussels, where I lived, the Maastricht University offer was the most appealing. An important selling point for me was that one of the professors at the faculty (in fact the Director of the Programme at the time) was Maarten Vink, whom I have first met at a public hearing at the European Parliament and was highly impressed by his presentation there.

How did you choose the topic of your Ph.D. research? Was it directly linked to your job/professional activity at the time?

My initial topic of the Ph.D. project was loosely linked to my second Master thesis topic and my general interests which, from time to time, intertwined with my professional activities. As a matter of fact, it was more of a hobby to brighten up my life and save me from drowning in my mundane office job.

Did the Ph.D. sessions at UM Campus Brussels contribute to your thesis progress?

At the time I started the programme, the schedule of the sessions was very intense, to the point that it was almost impossible to keep up with the pace and work at the same time. This was later tweaked by the management of the programme. As I did not have time to fully digest the content of the sessions as they went on, I was later very surprised what a great impact they had on me and my way of thinking that became more structured, coherent and purposeful. In fact, many of the sessions were instrumental for the development of the thesis and its main arguments.

What was the main finding of your Ph.D. research?

I researched the relations between the policies of the EU member states and the EU itself, through the lens of the coopetition theory. The main finding of my PhD was that coopetition, so simultaneous cooperation and competition, is fruitful for the development of the EU migration policies in general, no matter whether on the EU or the national level.

How would you explain the relevance of your Ph.D. to the person on the street, who is not familiar with EU politics/policy-making?

Policy makers are often concentrated solely on their area of interest, missing out on the bigger picture. My Ph.D can help those who are designing policies to see how their decisions impact lives of people in different member states. In fact, during the time I was writing my thesis, there were ongoing negotiations on a similar migration directive. I was in place to indicate to colleagues assisting at the negotiations that some positions of member states were incoherent with the previous implementation of the Blue Card directive that I was researching. I do not know whether it changed anything in the ongoing negotiations, but the mere realisation that directive negotiations, its transposition and implementation, are not linked in the eyes of policy-makers, made me appreciate the role of comprehensive longitudinal research even more than ever before.

How did the part-time Ph.D. programme fit alongside your job/professional activity?

Thanks to the Ph.D. programme I got promoted to a much more challenging and interesting job than I was initially hired for. However, this also meant that I was much busier job-wise than I have assumed in the beginning of the programme. Additionally, during the studies, I have experienced substantial changes in my private life (essentially from being single in year 1 to having a husband and two kids in year 6), so it became much more difficult to work on my thesis in the final stretch than at the outset. However, my supervisors and the programme managers were flexible enough to accommodate my needs with regard to the quantity of work (both in terms of input and output, as well as the timing).

Did you see the benefits of attending your Ph.D. sessions at Campus Brussels?

To be honest, the most interesting meetings with colleagues from Maastricht University were at external conferences.

Did the Ph.D. degree open new opportunities for you in your professional life?

Yes and no. As I work in the EU institutions, it is very rare to see dramatic changes in one’s career. However, I owe my current job thanks to the fact that I did study for a Ph.D. and this was discovered by colleagues who let me do more than what fitted my previous job description. I still hope that I will continue to reap the benefits of my Ph.D. studies in the near future.

Would you recommend the part-time Ph.D. programme in European Studies at Campus Brussels, Maastricht University?

Yes and no. I think it’s a very particular programme where a mere recommendation does not do good for the candidate nor for the programme. I always tell people thinking of doing advanced research to have a look at the website of the Brussels Campus of Maastricht University, but the decision to apply should be very carefully weighted.

What would be your one advice to the potential part-time Ph.D. candidates? (something you have discovered during your Ph.D. studies)

Five years is a lot of time when you are under 30. You should be very careful in assessing what you want from life and whether writing a Ph.D. as a part-time activity is what is best suited for your purposes. The part-time Ph.D. has a lot of advantages: it is flexible, you can work alongside doing research… However, it is also a very lonesome exercise as the research community in Campus Brussels is really limited. In order to fully take advantage of the life in academia, you should be able to take holidays for conferences, field trips, days of writing up. This is important to consider when you have limited holidays and numerous obligations.