New APPS

By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

You have to be a full professor, that’s what it takes. This is an entirely absurd, obsolete system – in particular in view of the fact that many PhD studentships are financed by external funding obtained by researchers who cannot be the official supervisors of these students (and who in practice do all the supervising work). The system is not only unfair; it is also nefarious for the functioning of academia in the Netherlands as a whole. (See a statement (in Dutch) by three philosophers and members of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences – Ingrid Robeyns, Arianna Betti and Peter-Paul Verbeek – with nine objections to the current system.)

Reinhard Muskens, a very distinguished logician-linguist-philosopher at the University of Tilburg, has started a petition asking the board of his university to revise this policy and extend the rights to be the official supervisor of a PhD thesis to non-full professors. Muskens himself has attracted very large amounts of external funding in his long and fruitful career as a researcher, has de facto supervised a number of PhD students, but still does not have what is referred to as ‘promotion rights’ around here. 

At most universities in the Netherlands, including at Tilburg University, the right to function as a 'promotor' [supervisor] during PhD defenses is only given to those with full professor status. While assistant and associate professors often are de facto supervisors of PhD students, they cannot obtain full formal responsibility for PhD projects. A full professor is required for the promotor position, who then automatically gets a final say in the project. We believe this situation is undesirable and unfair.

His petition is addressed to the board of his university, but it in fact concerns academia in the Netherlands as a whole. My own University, Groningen, has now in place a partial ‘solution’ to this problem with the new rank of ‘adjunct full professor’ (perhaps better translated as ‘junior full professor’), which is often (though not always) conceded to those promoted to the associate professor rank (or soon thereafter). At the very least, even if it is for now not technically possible to change the system as a whole (and why not, actually?), particular universities are well advised to consider putting in place asap arrangements such as the one in Groningen. Such arrangements at least mitigate the problem somewhat, and may represent the beginning of a permanent, general solution.

I encourage readers to consider signing this petition. You do not have to be related to Dutch academia to do it; in fact, a strong signal from abroad that this is an undesirable abnormality will certainly lend robust support to the petition. On behalf of Prof. Muskens and all Dutch academics, we thank you for your support.