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Special PhD fellowship

This fellowship supports researchers who are currently working outside scientific research and who wish to obtain a PhD within one year.

Status

Open
03/03/2025

Duration

1 jaar
No extension possible

Announcement of results

30/06/2025

Objective

The Special PhD fellowship enables persons not employed within scientific research to complete a PhD within one year. Applicants must be in possession of a "temporary leave" certificate issued by their current employer.

Important dates

  • 05 December 2024: call opens
  • 3 March 2025 at 5pm CET: call closes (last application date)
  • 16 June 2025: evaluation meeting
  • 30 June 2025: announcement of results
  • 1 November 2025: start fellowship

Characteristics

  • Duration of the fellowship: 1 year
  • Net monthly scholarship amount: identical to the last net salary of the main activity, limited to the net salary which the beneficiary would receive as assistant at a university in the Flemish Community
  • (new from call 2025) Bench fee: € 3,720 per year

Eligibility

  • At the start of the fellowship, you must hold a degree that is at least equivalent to a Master's degree that follows a Bachelor's degree and has been awarded by the competent institutions of one of the countries of the EEA or Switzerland.
  • If you have a degree certificate issued within the EEA or Switzerland but other than a master’s degree OR you have a degree certificate issued outside the EEA and Switzerland (this also applies to degrees awarded in the UK), then you must one of the following documents at the start of the fellowship:
    • An attestation of Naric that proofs your degree is equivalent to the level of a master’s degree awarded by one of the Flemsih universiteis
    • (Or) A declaration in which the administration of the university in the Flemish Community confirms that you will be allowed to prepare a doctoral thesis.
  • You are permanently employed.
  • You are not professionally involved in scientific research.
  • Your employer is willing to give you temporary leave or unpaid leave for 1 year. You are entitled to return to your job after the leave ends.
  • You relinquish any secondary activity and associated remuneration.
  • You have not previously received an FWO fellowship (not even in part).
  • You agree to the scientific integrity clause.

More details on the eligibility criteria for the Special PhD fellowship can be found in the Special PhD fellowship regulations.

Procedures

  • You first find a promotor at a university in the Flemish Community, the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Leuven or the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Brussels, who is prepared to guide you as a PhD student.
  • You submit your application online via our e-portal.
  • The FWO informs your promotor (and any co-promotor) of your application and asks your promotor to submit a letter of recommendation.
  • The Cross-Domain expert panel evaluates your application
  • The Board of Trustees makes the final decision on the selection based on the advice of the expert panel that evaluated the applications and interviews. You will receive the results via e-mail and you can also find them on the results page once they have been made public.

Submitting your application

You submit your application online via our E-loket.

Login E-loket

Regulations and downloads

General regulations

These general regulations are applicable for every funding of FWO

Regulations for Special PhD Fellowship

These regulations contain all conditions to apply for an FWO-Special PhD Fellowship

Regulations for Bench Fees of FWO fellows

These regulations contain all information about the bench fees for PhD and Postdoctoral Researchers of the FWO.

Internal and external peer review

These regulations lay down the conditions of the evaluation and award procedure for the research support programmes managed by the FWO. The composition of the panels for the FWO fellowships will be published early 2019.

Advice, selection and evaluation criteria

Advice

The FWO demands a letter of recommendation of the supervisor (and co-supervisors, if applicable). The supervisor makes an undertaking to assist the PhD student closely and to ensure sufficient coaching and guidance to facilitate the latter in completing a PhD within the period of the fellowship.

Selection

  1. Scientific quality of the applicant, based on the research already conducted independently by the applicant:
    • research capacity and potential;
    • research skills;
    • scientific independence;
  2. Quality of guidance and support;
  3. Quality of the proposed research:
    • originality and innovative nature of the project;
    • proposed methodology and work plan;
    • purposefulness of the project;
    • feasibility of obtaining the PhD within 1 year

Evaluation

  • research ability and skills of the PhD candidates
  • state of progress of the doctoral thesis
  • quality of the doctoral thesis
  • quality of the published results

Contact

For questions about the application template or procedure, you can contact your file administrator.

In the event of technical problems with the e-desk: FWOhelpdesk@fwo.be