Your PhD fellowship can be renewed once for a period of two years (second term)

If your first term ends on 31 October 2024, you will be invited by the FWO (around 15 March 2024 to prepare and submit a renewal application via your e-portal, by mid-May 2024.

The renewal application consists of a report of the research carried out, as well as an updated planning of the remaining research work.

Having received your renewal application, the FWO will ask your promotor’s opinion on your renewal request.  The FWO board of trustees will decide on the renewals end of June. Results will be announced on our website by June 27,2024.

As a holder of a PhD fellowship, you must submit an interim report. The interim report includes an overview of the work already carried out. The FWO will provide you with a template for this shortly after the start of your fellowship. You will find this template in your e-portal, where you can also check the deadline for this report. A few months before the deadline, the FWO will remind you to submit the interim report via your e-portal.

Around the deadline of your interim report, the FWO will ask your promotor for advice on the extension of your fellowship. The board of trustees will decide on the continuation of the PhD fellowships end of June, after which the FWO will announce the results via the website.

At the end of your fellowship (also in case of early termination) you will be invited by the FWO to submit a scientific final report. More details to follow in the invitation itself.

Information concerning FWO’s reporting policy can be found on a dedicated webpage.

(Special) PhD fellowships

Please mind that your appointment is definite only when the FWO has received the signed agreement, as well as your (if you are a Belgian citizen) identification number of the national register (on the back of Belgian ID). If you have a non-Belgian nationality and already a Belgian ID-card you should also provide us with your national register identification number! Please make sure this national register identification number is registered in the FWO e-portal (personal details section).

If you currently have a non-Belgian domicile address in the EU, then you must add your Tax Identification Number (TIN) in the FWO e-portal. This is a personal number that is provided by the EU country of residence

• A single completed and signed copy of the agreement which will be sent to you.
• Your solemn declaration used to determine your seniority.
• Copy of your diploma if you just graduated.
• If you are not of Belgian nationality: a copy of your identity card and residence permit.
• If you are married: an extract from the marriage certificate, with mention of the occupancy of your spouse.
• If you are legally cohabiting: “proof of receipt of the legal cohabitation declaration” issued by the Civil Registrar in the municipality of residence, with mention of the occupation of your partner.
• If you have a dependent spouse or legal cohabiting partner: a certificate from your health insurance fund proving that he/she is registered with you.
  

When you are employed for the first time, you must register yourself with a health insurance fund of your choice.  You must deregister yourself from your parents’ family allowances fund. You are financially dependent of your parent(s) as long as you are domiciled at the same address.  

For the calculation of your wife’s/husband’s or legally cohabiting partner’s salary, you are regarded as dependent, if he/she receives a taxable salary.

The fellowship may be suspended during the period of prolonged sickness leave, pregnancy leave, breastfeeding leave, parental leave, palliative leave or leave for medical assistance. In these cases the fellowship will be extended by the period during which no payments were received.

Extensions of less than two weeks will not be taken into consideration. 

PhD fellowships
If full-time suspensions of consecutive periods of three months occurred, during which the fellowship was not paid out because of prolonged sickness leave, pregnancy and breastfeeding leave, parental leave, and palliative leave, the fellowship will automatically be extended by one year, the extension commencing from the original end date of the fellowship. This administrative extension is granted only once and suspensions during such automatic extension of the fellowship will not give rise to any further extension of the fellowship. Any application for renewal of the fellowship must, in any case, be submitted during the second fellowship year.

The FWO Executive Committee may exceptionally grant an extension of up to five years in cases where social and medical reasons result in reduced capacity to work. 

Special PhD fellowship

Extensions will only be effective if the study leave is extended as well. Special PhD fellowships are not eligible for an administrative extension.

Time credit and voluntary part-time employment will not give rise to any extension of the fellowship.

Year-end bonus

The year-end bonus is based on the salary of the current year and on the hours worked during the first nine months of that same year. The year-end bonus is paid out halfway through December.

Holiday allowance

The holiday allowance is based on your salary for the month of May of the current year and the hours worked during the previous year and is paid out together with your salary for the month of May.

Reporting absence

Any absence due to illness, accident, accident at work, accident on the way to or from work, occupational illness, delivery must be reported by phone or email before 10 A.M. to the personnel department (personeelszaken@fwo.be).

Substantiation of absence

Besides reporting one’s absence, each absence as a result of inability to work of more than one day, must be substantiated by an incapacity for work certificate issued by the attending physician. Absence of one day due to work disability must be reported to the FWO, but no certificate is required for the first three times per calendar year that this occurs. Required certificates must be sent to the FWO within 48 hours. This also applies for extensions.

Absence for more than 30 days

If you are absent for more than 30 calendar days, you must inform your health insurance fund not later than on the 28th day of your absence through a ‘confidential’ note, available only from your health insurance fund. You might receive forms from your health insurance fund that will have to be (partially) filled in by the FWO. As of the 31st calendar day, you will no longer receive a salary from the FWO, but you will receive a replacement income from your health insurance fund.

Accident at work

An accident at work is:

An accident resulting in injury while at work.

An accident on the way to or from work. The accident occurred on the normal route from the victim’s residence to work or from work to the victim’s residence.

Forms:

Accident at work report (in pdf): to be filled in by the person involved or by the head of department if the person involved is unable to do so.

Medical certificate (in pdf): to be filled in by the first care provider.

All forms must be sent to the FWO.

Maternity Leave

Paid maternity leave is 15 weeks (105 calendar days) for a single birth, or 17 weeks for a multiple birth. Of these, at least 7 calendar days must be taken before the expected delivery date. In addition, 9 weeks maternity leave must be taken after delivery. 

You must:

Send a medical certificate stating the expected delivery date to the FWO.

If you come in contact with harmful agents, you must contact the occupational health service of the university within three months of your pregnancy.

If the medical exam certificate states that you should avoid certain substances that are harmful for the pregnancy, you must notify the FWO whether you will be performing alternative work until the commencement of your maternity leave.

You must inform your health insurance fund when your maternity leave starts, since you will not be paid by the FWO during your maternity leave. Instead, you will receive a replacement income from your health insurance fund.

Public transport

Via web application in the My Documents tab of the FWO E-portal.

Applications for reimbursement of travel expenses in the context of commuting can only be submitted via this application. 

All FWO staff will be fully reimbursed the cost of their travel card(s) for commuting to and from work by public transport (train – bus – tram - metro) in Belgium. For staff living abroad, only travel costs up to the border will be reimbursed. The FWO does not reimburse any supplements for first-class NMBS/SNCB travel cards. Individual travel tickets are no longer accepted. 

Travel and accommodation expenses in Belgium and abroad, excluding commuting expenses, must be reimbursed through the FWO bench fee. 

The reimbursement will be paid into your account together with the next payment of your grant or salary. Third payer system is not possible.

Should you leave the organisation before the end of the year, part of the reimbursed amount will be recovered.

The applicant will inform the FWO HR department (hr@fwo.be) immediately of any changes. Any abuse will be punished. 

If you still have a university travel card when you join the FWO, you must cancel it by sending proof of the university travel card to the university HR department. You will then need to request a new travel card directly from the transport company. 

Which travel cards can be accepted:

• Abonnement (Standard Season Ticket)
• Half-time abonnement (Half-Time Season Ticket)
• Multi Card 10/Flex Season Ticket 10 

Bicycle mileage allowance

Every staff member who uses the bicycle for:

• the entire commute, i.e. commuting by bike from home to work, without using any other means of transport,
• part of the commute, before or after another means of transport is used,

is entitled to a bicycle mileage allowance.

You use the bicycle for commuting in Belgium on at least 80% of the days effectively worked during the month.

The distance travelled (single trip) is at least one kilometre.

The current bicycle allowance is €0.27 per kilometre to and from.

The bicycle mileage allowance can be requested using the online form available in the e-portal. Any change (cancellation, temporary non-use, change in number of kilometres, etc.) must be reported immediately.

If you are found to have made false statements, the amounts paid will be recovered. In addition, disciplinary sanctions may be imposed. False statements can also lead to criminal prosecution.

Pursuant to article 19 of the FWO regulations for PhD fellowships fundamental research or strategic basic research, PhD fellows may engage in an additional remunerated activity.

It follows from the wording of this article that the additional income generating activity may NOT be linked to or contribute to the completion of the PhD fellowship and that it should not compromise the completion of your PhD fellowship.

The article specifies neither the percentage of your time you can spend on this additional activity nor the frequency or nature of said activity. You can therefore freely determine these conditions. However, the aforementioned provisions must be complied with at all times, irrespective of the nature or type of the additional activity.

In addition, you must ensure that the additional activity does not lose its character, i.e. it must at all times be subordinate or supplementary to your PhD research, which should remain your principal activity. This implies that such additional activities will also have to be pursued outside your normal fellowship activities or in your free time.

Assessment of compliance with these conditions is the responsibility of your supervisor. You can use the cumulation form available on the e-portal to declare the additional activity and then submit it to your supervisor for approval who must then notify you accordingly via the e-portal.

The FWO sets high standards for supervisors of its PhD candidates or postdoctoral researchers. These requirements are explicitly described in the profile of the good supervisor and state, among other things, that the supervisor must create and maintain a safe environment that is indispensable for the proper functioning of the doctoral student, the postdoctoral researcher and / or other researchers associated with his FWO research project. Attention to psychosocial well-being is an important part of this safe environment.

PhD fellows or postdoctoral researchers can raise psychosocial problems with their supervisors. All Flemish host institutions also have a network of ombudsman services and confidential advisers to whom FWO researchers can turn to with psychosocial problems that they cannot discuss with their supervisor. When an PhD fellow or postdoctoral researcher has used all facilities in their own host institution to find a solution to a psychosocial problem, in particular in the event of conflicts between the researcher and the supervisor, the FWO can, attempt to mediate. In such a case, contact wellbeing@fwo.be.

FWO researchers can also contact the Flemish Government's external Flemish contact point for inappropriate behavior: https://www.vlaanderen.be/vlaams-meldpunt-grensoverschrijdend-gedrag.

The FWO emphasizes the importance of raising psychosocial problems at an early stage with the supervisor, the host institution or the FWO itself.