News

We hope you are still doing well working (mostly) from home. The WIAS team is still working from home, but of course you can contact us via e-mail, Skype and phone.

New colleague WIAS office

I am Paddy Haripersaud. I live in Rhenen with my partner and our cat. I like hiking, experimenting with cooking and reading. I have the pleasure of joining the WIAS team as an administrative support staff. I look forward to working with you!

PhD projects and COVID

We wonder how WIAS PhDs are doing in this lockdown period. The WIAS office and the WAPS council kept in touch informally with all PhDs but in the coming weeks, we would like to get a more comprehensive overview of the effect that the lockdown has on our PhDs and their projects. We will be sending around a survey mid-June in which we will ask you a few questions about your progress and possible delays that you are experiencing in your PhD. We count on your collaboration and hope that you will complete this survey.

In the meantime, if you would like to get in touch with us personally, please contact janneke.vanseters@wur.nl or marianne.bruining@wur.nl or send a message to our general e-mail address: wias@wur.nl.

As part of the measures taken, PhD candidates were not allowed to travel to Wageningen. As of the 1th of August, this restriction will be lifted allowing PhD candidates to come to Wageningen again. Once in Wageningen, they should strictly adhere to the safety rules, regulations and guidelines of WUR for working in WUR facilities.

All updates regarding corona measures and PhD are published on the Intranet.

Emergency Fund open for applications

The University Fund Wageningen helps current PhD candidates with an external, non-commercial scholarship or who are self-funded who are in acute financial need because of COVID-19. Due to limited financial means the emergency fund must be a last resort: to be eligible for the emergency fund other solutions must not be possible. More information and the application form can be found on the website of UFW: www.universityfundwageningen.eu/emergencyfund

Call for WIAS fellowships 2020

Slowly, countries are beginning to open their boundaries and we therefore open our call for WIAS fellowships again. We invite PhD candidates who wish to travel abroad, postdocs who want to write a grant proposal and staff members who wish to invite guest researchers to submit a proposal for a WIAS fellowship. More information and application information can be found on the WIAS website.

Africa Talent Programme grant

We congratulate Gibbs Kuguru with his PhD grant from the Africa Talent Programme. All six Wageningen graduate schools could nominate one candidate within this programme and the three best candidates received a PhD or postdoc grant. Gibbs will work on the side-effects of fisheries induced bottlenecks within the Animal Population, Diversity and Genomics cluster.

Reminder call WIAS graduate programme

The graduate school WIAS offers funding to enable at least one MSc student to start a PhD at a WIAS group and subject of his/her choice. The WIAS graduate programme call is open to all MSc students from Wageningen University who graduate in 2020 and the deadline for submission is Monday 13 July 2020. For more information and the proposal template, visit our website.

WIAS Lunch Lectures

The WIAS lunch lectures are cancelled until September 2020.

Courses for PhDs and postdocs organized by WIAS and WGS

Until September 1, due to COVID-19 measures, professional competence/general courses have become online courses whenever possible. These courses included the WIAS TSP mandatory courses ‘’Scientific Integrity’’ and ‘’Ethics in Animal Sciences’’.

Also other popular courses, like scientific writing, project and time management, brain training etc. are now online. For a complete overview see: https://wgs.crs.wur.nl/

Unfortunately many disciplinary courses had to be cancelled or postponed (like the WIAS summer schools).

The WIAS GAMS modelling course will be online on 10, 12, 17 and 19 June.

Several statistic modules are offered online by the graduate school PE&RC. See: https://www.pe-rc.nl/courses-activities/postgraduate-courses/current-courses

Please note: WIAS PhDs also can register for disciplinary and statistics courses at the other 5 graduate schools in Wageningen, with subsidy from WIAS.

Hope is that only during half a year less (disciplinary) courses can be attended, and that from September class room education will be possible again. Probably some courses then still will have online editions, especially for PhDs who cannot be in Wageningen.

Some WIAS PhD candidates may have concerns about their TSP and fulfilling the requirements, especially those who are at the end of their PhD period. If needed WIAS will look for tailormade solutions; for that please contact marianne.bruining@wur.nl