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There are exceptions, but to the best of my knowledge most PhD-employees in the Netherlands have not chosen their own topic. This is nonsense. Although my PhD

There are exceptions, but to the best of my knowledge most PhD-employees in the Netherlands have not chosen their own topic. This is nonsense. Although my PhD was in a project with a predefined topic, many of my colleagues were doing a PhD in a topic of their choice. The faculty would have N open PhD positions every year, and people could submit proposals. Also, the primary argument set forth in this post is financial. If you avoid paying income tax (through scholarships), you can spend your money on other things. No shit. If you change the amount of the scholarship to $500 per month, you can also spend more money, but you'll only get garbage. You have to find some level of compensation where you still get good candidates. In some fields, candidates will go to industry at the proposed compensation level (I would). Another problem that is not taken into account is how government budgeting works. They won't see a switch to a bursary system as a way to save money to hire more faculty staff. They will see it as a way to save money, period. Especially in economically difficult times where we have to increase our military spending because of conflicts in Ukraine and the middle east.

Squarel 12y ago
Indeed. Here in Denmark there are two options for PhD, you can either get one of the proposed topics, or you can submit a proposal. Changing supervisors (at least in my experience) is not a problem, and this happens fairly regularly. It is better for a university to change supervisor than to lose a PhD student, as that happens often enough. The salary here ($4500 or so per month, pre tax) for a PhD at a university is enough to lure those interested in academic work (especially after spending 5 years on Student payments of around $1k/month), whilst not being incredibly high. Of course, if you go into the private sector to do your PhD, you can expect a higher salary.
evoloution 12y ago
"in the UK and the US, PhD-students can in many (most?) cases choose their own topic" In the US, in the labs I am aware of, most of the student stipend for the experimental work is paid by the lab from its funds. As a consequence most of the time it is on the grant's topic. Choosing the lab is a way of choosing the range of the topics. "Our proposal would give PhD-students decent wage contracts for the research assistance or teaching which they would do" PhD students do not merely provide research assistance. They design protocols, carry them out and ask new questions, at least the good ones. The only thing that most PhD students lack is the ability to safely shift focus since most of their ideas have already been done but they don't know that since they are not aware of the literature. What I don't like about the articles on academics lately is that on the one side they are focusing on how to keep highly educated people with low salaries and on the other hand how to bring more people in academia. Increase the salaries and more smart people will come, it is as simple as that... instead they are trying to get more people in academia so more people get trapped by inertia in bad paying jobs...

Squarel 12y ago

Indeed. Here in Denmark there are two options for PhD, you can either get one of the proposed topics, or you can submit a proposal. Changing supervisors (at least in my experience) is not a problem, and this happens fairly regularly. It is better for a university to change supervisor than to lose a PhD student, as that happens often enough. The salary here ($4500 or so per month, pre tax) for a PhD at a university is enough to lure those interested in academic work (especially after spending 5 years on Student payments of around $1k/month), whilst not being incredibly high. Of course, if you go into the private sector to do your PhD, you can expect a higher salary.

evoloution 12y ago

"in the UK and the US, PhD-students can in many (most?) cases choose their own topic" In the US, in the labs I am aware of, most of the student stipend for the experimental work is paid by the lab from its funds. As a consequence most of the time it is on the grant's topic. Choosing the lab is a way of choosing the range of the topics. "Our proposal would give PhD-students decent wage contracts for the research assistance or teaching which they would do" PhD students do not merely provide research assistance. They design protocols, carry them out and ask new questions, at least the good ones. The only thing that most PhD students lack is the ability to safely shift focus since most of their ideas have already been done but they don't know that since they are not aware of the literature. What I don't like about the articles on academics lately is that on the one side they are focusing on how to keep highly educated people with low salaries and on the other hand how to bring more people in academia. Increase the salaries and more smart people will come, it is as simple as that... instead they are trying to get more people in academia so more people get trapped by inertia in bad paying jobs...