RU Works Council

Representing PhD candidates in the Works Council (OR) is an important task. We, as PhD students, form a large proportion of the scientific staff, but as junior staff members we need good representation to make sure that decisions are not made without us and that the needs and experiences of beginning researchers are taken into account. PON keeps in close contact with these representatives.

What is the Works Council?

In the Netherlands, all universities have a Works Council (Ondernemingsraad, OR) where employees come together to discuss, advise, and approve a wide range of topics regarding university policy.

The Radboud University is one of the few universities at which PhD candidates and post-docs, being researchers with a temporary contract, are represented in the Works Council.

On a monthly basis, the OR meets with the Board of Directors of the university to discuss the state of affairs at the university and a range of issues affecting students and personnel, from laptop facilities to student advisors, from the BKO to the UKO, from career planning to the annual budget.

Together with the University Student Council (Universitaire Studentenraad or USR), the Work Council forms part of the Joint Assembly (Gemeenschappelijke Vergadering or GV). The PON faction mainly represents the interests of staff members on temporary contracts, especially PhD candidates and post-docs; but of course, they pay attention to all the topics under discussion in the GV. In that respect, they are here for all 4000-plus university employees (including over 1600 PhD candidates and over 250 post-docs; over 30% of employees are temporary faculty).

PON will inform all PhD Candidates through electronic newsletters and through media such as Vox. In this way, we will keep you posted on the latest news from the Works Council.

If you have anything you'd like to bring to our attention, we'd like to hear from you. Please let us know via pon@ru.nl.

Who are currently representing PhD candidates?

You can find all the members of the Works council here.

Past representatives:

New elections for the work councils are held every 3 years. Below you can find an overview of past PON representatives that served in the works council.

Electoral year: 2017-2019. PON occupied 3 of the 21 seats. The PON was represented in the Works Council by: Katrin Sutter, Simone Lederer and Lonneke Teunissen.

Electoral year: 2017-2019. PON occupied 4 of the 21 seats. The PON was represented in the Works Council by: Tim Riswick, Suzanne Kali, James Trujillo, and Monja Isabel Froböse.

What happens with your vote?

During the elections, you vote for a candidate on a list, for example, for Jan, who is on the list of PON-OR. This vote will (1) count for the number of seats that PON wins, and (2) influence Jan's chance to fill one of the seats for PON. This is because the total number of votes for all PON candidates determines how many seats the list wins, and the personal votes of the candidates influence who fills the seats. The seats are first filled with those candidates who have a substantial number of personal votes and then according to the order on the list.

Do you want more information or are you ready to vote? Go to this page.