Information for PhD students
At DIAG, nearly eighty PhD students are currently pursuing their research. About half of them do not originate from the Netherlands, reflecting the international character of our group. As a result, we receive many applications from both within the Netherlands and abroad. On this page, you will find background information about what it's like to do a PhD at DIAG, along with important things to be aware of if you're considering applying for a position.
PhD students at DIAG are primarily researchers
In many countries, pursuing a PhD - or being a PhD student, candidate, or graduate student (all similar terms) - is more akin to being a student than an independent researcher.
In the Netherlands, and especially at DIAG, the opposite is true.
From day one, PhD students at DIAG dedicate over 80% of their time to research. While independence naturally grows with experience, our PhD students are actively involved in research teams from the start. A glance at our publications shows that PhD students are first authors of the bulk of our scientific output.
PhD students work on a specific predefined project
In some countries, graduate students begin their PhD by following courses and, at some point, writing a proposal about the research they want to do. Only after the proposal is approved does the actual research start.
This is not common in the Netherlands, and we do not work this way in DIAG.
At DIAG, PhD students are hired to work on specific, predefined projects. In almost all cases, funding for this project has already been secured by the supervisors before hiring a PhD student. It therefore makes no sense to email us "to apply to enroll in your PhD program". PhD students are hired to fill a particular vacancy, and these vacancies are posted on our website. Talented students are always invited to send us their CV, so we already know about you and your interest in working with us.
The fact that you work on a predefined project does not mean you do not have a lot of freedom to define your own research. We encourage you to be creative, follow your own ideas, and make your own contributions. This is part of becoming an independent researcher.
If you apply for a particular position, you should explain why you would like to work on that project and why you believe you are a good candidate for that particular project. Many applications we receive, we discard immediately because they read like a stock letter. We recommend reading these tips.
You can follow courses, but you spend limited time on these
PhD students at DIAG have the opportunity to take courses, and most of our students follow several courses during their PhD. This often includes courses on giving scientific presentations or writing scientific articles, courses on topics in deep learning, image processing, or machine learning, and high-level tutorials at conferences or summer schools. However, following courses is not mandatory, and you typically do not get exams. You can discuss what courses are useful for you with your supervisor. The total time you spend on courses is less than 10%.
Side activities
At DIAG, PhD students spend about 10% of their time on general services to the group. This can be organizing weekly meetings, maintaining software libraries, teaching, maintaining the website, etc. For example, the software behind this website was developed by Wouter Bulten together with a few colleagues.
Visiting conferences and going abroad
Visiting and participating in conferences and other research groups, sometimes for extended periods of time, is very important for your development as a researcher. Therefore, we highly encourage this and have funding available. You can see from our publications under the headings Papers in conference proceedings and Abstracts that PhD students typically attend several conferences during their PhD. Many of these conference contributions are later worked out into journal papers.
Four years and a thesis
A PhD trajectory typically takes four years at DIAG. Some people have a three-year project. The main output is your thesis, which consists of several chapters. Most chapters are identical to journal publications that you have written as the first author during your four or three years. The minimum number of first-author articles in international journals is three, and two of these must have been accepted before you submit your thesis to the manuscript committee. Note that conference contributions, even if they are published in proceedings that appear on, e.g., PubMed (for example, MICCAI papers), do not count as journal publications. To get an idea of the theses written by PhD students at DIAG, you can download any thesis from our thesis gallery.
Salary
The salary conditions for PhD students in the Netherlands are fixed and detailed in the collective labour agreement. Gross salary per month (2025 figures) is 3017 in year 1, increasing to 3493, 3655, and 3824 euros in the next years. Employment at Radboudumc comes with a range of additional benefits.