As a board member of PNN, Joanna Porkert had many talks and exchanges with PhD candidates in the Netherlands. It was striking how little knowledge PhD candidates had about their labor rights, and about the entities they could turn to in case of a violation of them. A repetitive pattern that emerged in these conversations were problems with a supervisor or the entire supervision team.
To offer these PhD candidates an orientation in their search for a change in their supervision, we created a roadmap to give tips that can help to prevent a conflict with a supervisor, but also offers pragmatic solutions in the case that a conflict cannot be solved anymore. These solutions are based on former experiences by other PhD candidates, but also on advice we received from PhD coordinators. While there is no standard way for a supervisor change as these cases of conflicts are usually treated on a case-by-case basis, we hope that these tips can still give some more guidance.
The solutions may not always sound fair or good to PhD candidates, but they can offer a swift solution for the PhD candidate to readdress their focus to the successful completion of their PhD project. It was important to us to also offer suggestions that can help to prevent an escalation of a conflict. Read more here.
