On this page, the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies highlights the major aspects of the PhD application process (as of September 2024). For detailed regulations and updates, please visit the website of our funding agency, the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO).
Advantages of doing a PhD with us:
- 4-year PhD fellowship sponsored by regional-level grant (FWO)
- Chinese applicants can come with a China Scholarship Grant (Ghent University accepts grant holders in humanities)
- No coursework, which means plenty of time for research
- A team of Buddhist Studies specialists assures that you will not feel isolated with your research topic
- Our doctoral school specialist courses and lecture series broaden your horizons as a Buddhist Studies scholar and help you develop international networks
- Our reading group and research forum help you read primary sources and develop your conference presentations and journal papers
- Generous renumeration by the FWO: with 0 years’ seniority (i.e., no previous teaching or research experience) you get €2,460 /month (data as of September 2024; indexed each year)
- Research budget by the FWO (for conference trips, research stays, publication fees, etc.): € 3,720 /year (data as of September 2024)
Eligibility
- At the start of the fellowship (November 1), you must hold a degree that is at least equivalent to a Master’s degree that follows a Bachelor’s degree (NOT a master-after-master diploma) and has been awarded by a university in one of the countries of the EEA or Switzerland.
- If you did your master outside the EEA and Switzerland, you should have it recognized as equivalent through NARIC procedure
OR
- Provide the FWO with a declaration in which the administration of Ghent University confirms that you will be allowed to prepare a doctoral thesis at the latest September 15 before the start of your mandate. This also applies to degrees awarded in the UK.
- You need to have obtained your Master’s degree or equivalent no later than three years before the final submission deadline.
- At the deadline, you will have reached a maximum of 18 months of academic seniority.
- You can only apply twice for a PhD fellowship.
- You have never before received this fellowship.
Application timeline
The FWO selection process consists of two stages: submission of a written proposal and—if it passes preselection—interview.
Key dates (as of September 2024; for detailed schedule, please visit the FWO website):
- March 1: proposal submission deadline
- late June: invitation to interviews
- September: (physical) interviews
- early October: announcement of results
- November 1: start fellowship (please remember that by this date you must already have your master degree)
This means that it is desirable to contact your prospective supervisor at Ghent University no later than DECEMBER of the previous year. Writing the application is LONG and COMPLEX, so the sooner you start working on it, the better your chances are.
Application process step-by-step
Step 1: Check if your project fits into our areas of expertise
If you are interested and eligible to join the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies as a PhD student, the first step is to have a look at the profiles of our professors and determine who might be your perspective supervisor. As of September 2024, the main regional areas of our expertise are:
– Chinese Buddhism, Silk Road Studies (Professors Ann Heirman, Christoph Anderl, and Bart Dessein)
– Japanese Buddhism (Professors Anna Andreeva and Andreas Niehaus)
– Indian Buddhism (Professor Daniela De Simone)
– India and Central Asia (Professor Charles DiSimone)
Step 2: Contact us
If you are planning to do a PhD in one of these fields, write an e-mail to your prospective supervisor at the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies describing your research interests. Append a CV to this e-mail.
Step 3: Create an FWO account
First, create an account on the FWO E-portal. The navigation on this portal is described in pages 1-7 of the PhD example application form. (This PDF was backed-up as of September 2024; for updates, please visit the FWO website.)
Account approval usually takes no more than 2 business days.
After logging in, fill out your personal information in the E-portal. As a future service address in Belgium, put “Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent.”
You can now click through everything to get an idea of what is required for your application.
Step 4: Start writing your research proposal
The FWO application consists of two parts:
(1) project outline, which you will upload as a PDF file (pages 20-21 of the PhD example application form)
(2) questions section, which you see directly on E-portal (see pages 8-19, 22-55 of the PhD example application form)
Begin by addressing point (1) here, i.e., writing the project outline. It should be 10 pages in length and must be formatted in 11-point Calibri font, single-spaced, page margins, etc.
Based on our experience, we have prepared a detailed guide for filling out various sections of the project outline, so we highly encourage you to consult it.
Please do start writing well in advance! As we have mentioned above on this page, FWO applications have a 30% success rate. But in fact 90% of candidates who contact us fail to submit their application at all, and the main reason is a lack of time for us to offer feedback and for the candidate to revise the draft into a well-developed research proposal.
Step 5: We help you revise your draft
Send the draft of your project outline to your prospective supervisor no later than JANUARY. We read your draft and offer advice on how to improve it. You revise your draft based on our suggestions and resubmit it to us. This may take several rounds of revisions. So it is very important to submit your first draft well in advance and allow us enough time to get a closer look at your proposal.
Step 6: Write the answers to the items in the questions section of the application
Based on our experience, we have prepared a detailed guide for answering these questions, so we highly encourage you to consult it. It is advisable to write your answers in a Word document first and copy them to the portal during final submission.
Step 7: Consult an English-language editor
If you are not a native speaker of English, we recommend submitting your project outline and your answers to questions to an English-language editor. You can ask for suggestions of suitable editors, but please be aware that we offer no funding or reimbursements for their services.
Do not forget that the English editor also needs time to look through your files, and you need additional time to review their suggestions. So contact your editor well in advance to book a time slot in their schedule around FEBRUARY 20-25, and set this as a deadline for yourself in revising your project outline and preparing the answers to questions.
Step 8: Final submission
Copy your answers to questions to the E-portal and upload your project outline, but do NOT submit yet. E-portal has a preview function, which allows you to download a PDF showing what your submission will look like when the experts receive it.
Check the PDF to make sure that everything is fine (no traces of tracked changes, etc.) and only then submit.