PhD support

A high-quality PhD dissertation, spanning at least four journal articles, marks the culmination of a successful PhD trajectory. For some non-native speakers of the English language, however, writing up their research may be quite a distressful job. How to pay attention to style, avoid abstractness, and make your writing more vivid? How to get your message across while attending not only to correct spelling, grammar and punctuation, but also to consistency? PhD students who are struggling with such issues may, in consultation with their supervisors, send their manuscript to the editor/translator of SHE for a language revision, as long as their manuscript complies with the formal requirements of the journal it will be submitted to (maximum number of words, structure/headings etc.). Similarly, non-Dutch speaking PhD students who wish to have their PhD dissertation summary translated into Dutch can contact: Angelique van den Heuvel, MA.

Good methodological research designs, be it qualitative, quantitative or otherwise are of paramount importance at all stages of a research project. What methodology to select? How to design your study? How to sample participants for your study (and how many)? How to align your interview technique with your qualitative methodology? How to analyse repeated measurements and multilevel data? How to deal with missing responses? How to explore, interpret and report on research findings? And so on…

Do not hesitate to ask for advice early in your research design process!

• Quantitative research consultation: for questions and consultancy regarding quantitative research, PhD candidates within SHE can contact Jeroen Donkers (please use email address “statconsult-educ” at “maastrichtuniversity.nl”). Based on topic, expected methods, and availability of the PhD candidate and consultants, a PhD candidate will then be assigned to one of the following consultants: Dr. Jeroen Donkers, Dr. Saskia van Laar, or Dr. Shahab Jolani.
• Qualitative research consultation: for questions and consultancy regarding qualitative research methodologies and methods, PhD candidates within SHE can contact the SHE qualitative research consultants, Janneke Frambach and Renée Stalmeijer.
• For questions about what research paradigm and research methodology to select, you can consult all of us. For some background on this we refer to this introductory paper by Megan E.L. Brown (2019): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40670-019-00898-9
• For help with literature search and review studies, candidates can reach out to a dedicated team at the UM library

Good ethical practice and data management are of crucial importance at all stages of a research project and several things need to be considered. Here you can find support and more information about SHE policies and practices of scientific integrity, ethical approval, data management, data safety, open science and open access publishing. The Scientific Integrity @ SHE group created a roadmap that helps you navigate these issues through all stages of the research process.

Scientific integrity & social safety roadmap

Integrity is of great importance for the quality and credibility of scientific research. All staff and students should deal responsibly with ethical or social issues threatening scientific integrity. But what if you make a mistake, or suspect others to violate scientific integrity consciously or unconsciously? The FHML/MUMC+ Platform Scientific Integrity (PSI) has launched a roadmap for scientific integrity and social safety for PhD candidates. The roadmap provides directions on how to act and who to turn to in case of questions related to potential data breaches, scientific integrity, impartiality, and social safety.

The SHE PhD Guide contains more information on support for PhD candidates, and a list of contact persons such as the SHE confidential counsellor.

Scholarships

SHE offers several scholarships for PhD candidates to make its research more accessible. If you are struggling with finances, please contact the SHE PhD coordinator.