Foto Roelof Kleis The beadles have had a quiet first quarter of 2025. No more than 40 PhD candidates defended their theses. Extrapolated for the entire year, this would mean only 160 defences, considerably less than the 400 defences expected for this year.
The dip in the number of defences is caused by a change in the booking system used to pick a date for the defence, says Saskia de Boer of the Doctorate Service Centre (DSC). The new system offers PhD candidates many more options from which to choose. Rather than one date in a specific month, they can select from the whole calendar.
Threshold
However, there is a threshold: a date can only be selected once the Doctorate Service Centre has approved the reading version of the dissertation and the doctoral committee. That was not the case before, which allowed candidates to select a date even before the dissertation was finalised, leading to the occasional cancellation.
The new system offers PhD candidates many more options from which to choose. Rather than one date in a specific month, they can select from the whole calendar.
Saskia de Boer, Doctorate Service Centre
The new system has caused a dip in PhD defences. ‘The first doctoral candidates who were able to select a date were able to choose from all available dates’, says De Boer. This caused a run on popular dates. Out of the available Thursdays and Fridays, the Fridays are more popular.
One-time
Approximately half of all available dates have not yet been booked. Whether that will affect the rest of the year is unclear. ‘Whether there will be issues is just speculation at this point’, De Boer says. ‘We expect this to be a one-time thing. The “luxury” of an empty calendar certainly was.’
