Graduate School IMM

As a PhD candidate you will conduct research within one or two research groups in our institute. IMM employs more than 150 PhD candidates. It is our mission to train you to the next generation of leaders in science and innovation. You will be directly involved in IMM’s multidisciplinary research and can make use of our unique research facilities.

Training

All IMM PhD candidates take part in the following obligatory courses:

Year 1
  • Essential skills to manage your PhD project*
  • Finding, managing and publishing scientific literature during your PhD*
  • Basic didactic skills*
Year 2
Year 3
  • The art of presenting science*
Year 4 One of these courses from the Radboud PhD programme
  • Grant writing and presenting for funding committees
  • Een PhD en dan? (NL)
  • Career guidance for international PhDs (EN)
Annually  sIMMposium
Monthly IMM colloquium & Theme colloquia

Elective part: you are free to choose activities for the elective part. In the TSP form some suggestions of categories are listed to choose from, e.g. attend the IMM PhD days (organized by PPIMM), follow courses about your research topic (including master’s courses) or other personal development courses of Radboud University.

For more information on the content of the courses, download the IMM PhD Courses Guide: 

*IMM PhD Courses Guide

Tutorial at Library of Science

Teaching

As part of their stay at the institute, all PhD candidates are required to contribute to the teaching of undergraduate students. This is because IMM is involved in the teaching activities of the Education Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy (WiNSt) and of the Education Institute for Molecular Sciences (MW). Both provide Bachelor’s and Master’s courses in physics, chemistry and other disciplines. The nominal teaching load of PhD candidates within the faculty of science is 10%. This equals to around 160 hours of teaching per year. These hours consist of supervising internships of undergraduate students and assisting in courses. We expect each PhD student to spend around 400 hours in total on assisting with courses, the other hours are spent on supervising internship students.

The teaching activities for courses are scheduled by the ‘teaching coordinator’ within your research group or cluster. If you have any questions, you can contact them. Make sure you also discuss the distribution of the teaching load over the four years with your supervisor(s).

PhD trajectory overview

At the start of your PhD, you will write a Training & Supervision Plan (TSP) and Project Plan (PP). The Training & Supervision plan includes themes like research strategy, frequency of contacts with the supervisors, courses to be followed and teaching tasks. The Project Plan describes the planned research and the applied methods. Radboud University uses the program Hora Finita to monitor all running PhD trajectories. In principle, after 48 months (full time employment) your PhD project is completed. When finalizing your PhD, your thesis manuscript will be submitted to the Manuscript Committee. After approval of the Manuscript Committee, you will defend your thesis before a Doctoral Examination Board.

For more information, download the PhD Guide:

PhD Guide

IMM PhD Guide.pdf

PhD Panel IMM (PPIMM)

IMM has a PhD panel which includes PhD candidates of all three research themes. PPIMM aims to increase the interaction between IMM PhD candidates. This panel will organise activities for and by PhD candidates like workshops, colloquia and/or a symposium. It is also a platform to discuss courses or issues that you encounter throughout your PhD. The PhD representative is the head of this panel and has an advisory role for the board.

The PPIMM team members are:

  • Etienne Walraven (Theoretical and Computational Chemistry) (chair)
  • Joost Aretz (Theory of Condensed Matter)
  • Fleur Brinkman (Biomolecular Chemistry)
  • Ruth Crothers (Physical Chemistry of Soft Matter)
  • Sandra Kleuskens (HFML High Field Magnet Laboratory)
  • Tjacco Koskamp (Theory of Condensed Matter)
  • Teun van Wieringen (Molecular Structure and Dynamics)

Do you have input, questions, or would you like to participate in organising activities? Email the panel at ppimm [at] science.ru.nl (ppimm[at]science[dot]ru[dot]nl)

Graduation Planning and Evaluation - Forms for supervision

Contact

The IMM office is open for any questions you may have regarding your PhD project or any other issues. It is located in HG03.071, and is open on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. 

024-3652065