PhD Council Donders Institute
PhD Council Donders Institute

PhD Programme

Within the Donders Graduate School we offer PhD opportunities and a broad range of facilities to our PhD candidates. Our mission is to guide our graduates to become skilled academics who are equipped for a wide range of professions.

Donders Graduate School

The Donders Graduate School includes a vibrant community of highly talented national and international PhD candidates, with over 500 PhD candidates enrolled. Their backgrounds cover a wide range of disciplines, from physics to psychology, medicine to psycholinguistics, and biology to artificial intelligence. Similarly, their interdisciplinary research covers genetic, molecular, and cellular processes at one end and computational, system-level , and clinical neuroscience with cognitive and behavioral analysis at the other end. 

You have come to the right place if you are curiosity-driven, have a passion for neuroscience, are eager to learn, intend to show commitment to the Donders Graduate School and Donders Institute and have the ambition to excel.

Finding a PhD position at the Donders Institute

You can find available PhD positions at the different Donders centers, as well as partner institutes in Nijmegen, listed on the Donders vacancies page. These PhD positions already have secured funding and an associated supervisor. PhD positions are advertised throughout the year, and each have their own start date.  Please note that the graduate school is not in charge of accepting PhD candidates.

Donders Institute vacancies

PhD council 

Our PhD council is a group of PhD candidates from all parts of the Donders Institute. As we highly value the input from our PhD candidates, they represent the PhD candidates of the DI towards the board and management of the Radboud University and Radboudumc. They also organize events that are very interesting for our PhD candidates.

PhD council

Upcoming PhD defences

Very severe challenging behavior in dementia: Pioneering for well-being in highly specialized units

Very severe challenging behavior in dementia: Pioneering for well-being in highly specialized units

This PhD thesis aimed to gain more insight into the organization, treatment, and outcomes of treatment of people with dementia in specialised units.

Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effect of autonomy on learning

Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effect of autonomy on learning

This PhD thesis aims to investigate how the sense of autonomy influences memory encoding, in conjunction with other environmental factors that surround individuals, focusing on both cognitive and neural mechanisms.

Head-up tilt sleeping in Parkinson disease and multiple system atrophy: Towards a better understanding and treatment of cardiovascular autonomic failure

Head-up tilt sleeping in Parkinson disease and multiple system atrophy: Towards a better understanding and treatment of cardiovascular autonomic failure

The PhD defence of A.H. van der Stam is on 2 February 2026 at 12:30 pm.