Blog post
The more PhDs, the merrier. From 4 to 14 in four years
I am a PhD candidate; I am in FNP. Four years ago, I was just one of a handful found any day in the week in the corridor of Gaia-B3. To be exact, four in 2020. But look at me now, together with other PhD candidates during a fun outing in Ede last Saturday – a strictly PhD event, which I hope is the herald of more to come.
The number of PhD candidates in the Forest & Nature Conservation Group has grown steadily in numbers in the last four years. While a few had finished and left, more have jumped on the bandwagon. Is the journey enjoyable? Yes, if you take away the wrong turns and hard peddling. Anyway, you can count on at least a few of us to be present on any day in the week in the corridor of Gaia-B3, during the lunch breaks, around ‘Jim’s table’ – a 15-euro wobbly wood plank on four stout legs. In good weather, we take our food outdoors.
Our names are, in order of who joined FNP first: Eugenie, Reineke, Rianne, Jakob, Albertine, Marina, Ravi, Angus, Lorenz, Jasmijn, Anne and Baiah. We are expecting Roald before the year ends, and Aleksandra at the start of the new year. That would make a total of 14 of us to fill the FNP corridor with our youthful energy and merry laughter.
And these numbers do not include ‘the externals’ – PhD candidates not housed within the FNP premises in Wageningen. They are located in Cameroon, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Germany, Sweden, India, Colombia, the U.S.A. or within other groups in Wageningen University and other organisations in The Netherlands. Sometimes, they show up in Gaia for short periods, such as Dereje, Aytenew, Jessica, Eline, Judith, Max, Esther and Jin. There are 20 externals this year, with three of them obtaining their doctorates in the last weeks of 2024.
Our representative for the past year has been Ravi, who had done a fair bit of pushing and shoving during her term; the baton has been handed to Anne last month.
We also hear that at least six more PhD candidates (either externals or our future corridor mates) will be coming on board in the course of the next year.
The main reason for this increase in the number of PhDs in FNP is the group’s success in acquiring funding for new research projects in all our three themes.
To see more of us, look here.
The increase in PhD candidates also happens WU-wide. According to the November issue of Resource – the WUR’s news magazine – the 9000th PhD received a doctorate from Wageningen University on 6 November. This number has been increasing over the past decade, with the 5000th PhD in 2011, the 6000th in 2015 and the 7000th in 2018. It is expected that 2023’s record number of 359 doctorates will be broken by the end of this year, with an expected 381 PhDs.
– by K.M. Poon