In this section, we explain if, and if so, which collective labor agreement does apply for you as a PhD candidate. Do you not know (yet) which contract does apply? Go to this page to find out!
Employed PhD candidates fall under a collective labor agreement (CLA), which determines most of their labor rights and employment conditions. A CLA is an agreement between labor unions and (an association of) employers, such as Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) and Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU).
The CLA includes provisions on wages, working hours, allowances, holidays, training, and pension. It also covers a variety of PhD specific issues, such as contract extensions, the go/no-go moment and the Teaching and Supervision Plan. The CLA lasts for a predetermined period, after which it is renegotiated. This allows for the continual improvement and modernization of labor rights and employment conditions. The labor unions and employers’ associations negotiate on behalf of their members, and require their approval before a CLA can be definitively concluded.
In the Netherlands, adherence to the CLA is not dependent on individual labor union membership. Employers that fall under a CLA must apply it to all of their employees. Adherence to the CLA is also not optional for employees. Which CLA applies to you thus depends on where you are formally employed.
PhD candidates at universities or other higher education institutions
The CLA Dutch Universities (NU) applies to all employees of:
- One of the Dutch universities that are represented by UNL:
- Universiteit van Amsterdam
- VU Amsterdam
- TU Delft
- TU Eindhoven
- Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
- Universiteit Leiden
- Universiteit Maastricht
- Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
- Open Universiteit
- Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
- Tilburg Universiteit
- UTwente
- Universiteit Utrecht
- Universiteit Wageningen
- And, a variety of other higher education institutions that ‘follow’ it:
- De Stichting IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (IHE) te Delft
- De Vereniging PO-Raad (PO-Raad) te Utrecht
- Universiteit voor Humanistiek (UVH) te Utrecht
- Nuffic te Den Haag
- Protestants Theologische Universiteit (PThU) te Amsterdam
- Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW) te Amsterdam
- Platform Opleiding, Onderwijs en Organisatie BV (PLATO) te Leiden
- Stichting Roosevelt Academy (SRA) te Middelburg
- Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn (TUA) te Apeldoorn
- Theologische Universiteit Utrecht (TUU) te Utrecht
- Universiteiten van Nederland (UNL) te Den Haag
- De Fryske Akademy (FA) te Leeuwarden
- De Stichting WO2NET te Den Haag
The CLA HBO applies to all employees of the Universities of applied sciences.
PhD candidates at universities or other higher education institutions
The CLA UMC’s applies to all employees of:
- Amsterdam UMC
- Erasmus MC (Rotterdam)
- LUMC (Leiden)
- Maastricht UMC
- Radboud UMC
- UMCG (Groningen)
- UMC Utrecht
Employed PhD candidates at non-UMC hospitals, generally fall under the CLA hospitals (only available in Dutch)
PhD candidates at a research institution
The CLA Research Institutions applies to all employees of:
- The NWO;
- one of the institutions under NWO-I;
- AMOLF, Physics of functional complex matter
- ARCNL, Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography
- ASTRON, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
- CWI, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
- DIFFER, Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research
- HFML-FELIX, High Field Magnet Laboratory en Free-Electron Lasers for Infrared eXperiment
- Nikhef, Nationaal instituut voor subatomaire fysica
- NIOZ, Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut voor Onderzoek der Zee
- NSCR, Nederlands Studiecentrum Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving
- SRON, Netherlands Institute for Space Research
- And the Royal Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek)
