TGS Award

Since 2013 TGS hands out a so-called TGS Award. The objective is to stimulate promising UT Master students to do their PhD at the UT.

Procedure

Nominees for the TGS award are talented and excellent UT Master’s students who have the ambition to pursue a PhD trajectory at the UT. Eligible students are in the last phase of their Master’s programme (contenders for the 2024 TGS Award obtain their MSc from the UT in the academic year 2023/24).

In the first round, suitable candidates are nominated per Faculty, and one candidate per Faculty is selected by the Faculty Board. The requirements for the pre-selection phase are: 

1. Filled in a form which includes the CV, MSc and BSc grades.
2. A research statement was written by the candidate (max. 1000 words), linking the qualities of the candidate and their earlier research to an envisaged research topic.
3. One or more letters of recommendation from the intended PhD supervisor, and if possible the Master and Bachelor supervisors or other relevant references. The preselection process is facilitated in the Faculties, and the result has to be known by April 1^st. Each faculty can nominate 1 candidate for the final round.

The candidates nominated by the Faculty for the second round (max. 5) will compete for a full PhD position of 4 years (i.e. they will NOT receive the TGS bridging grant as used to be). The second round consists of interviews and will be held in May; by that time the candidates are asked to present their research vision to the TGS Jury.  The research statement has to be written by the candidate (i.e. it is not part of a larger project submitted for funding and prepared by academic staff). The presentations and interviews with the candidates are the basis for the TGS Award jury to rank the proposals and choose the winner.

The TGS Award, consisting of a full PhD position of 4 years, is handed out during the Opening of the Academic Year by the Rector Magnificus. In case the winner of the TGS Award will obtain external funding for the PhD project, or for other reasons cannot accept the TGS Award, the Award will be transferred to the next in line.

The TGS Award 2023 is won by Jana Lim. 

Criteria

Nominees should fulfil the following requirements:

• talented and excellent UT MSc student with the ambition to pursue a PhD trajectory at the University of Twente independently working on a research proposal.
• nominated & recommended by an intended UT first supervisor (professor or UHD with ius promovendi; beoogd promotor in Dutch).
• Graduated/ing from UT in the academic year (2023/24 in case of the 2024 TGS Award) and aspiring for PhD at the UT.
• nominated by the Faculty through:
  1.  a filled in form which includes the CV, MSc and BSc grades
  2.  a research statement, written by the candidate, of maximum of 1000 words linking the qualities of the candidate to his/her envisaged research topic.
  3.  letters of recommendation from the intended PhD supervisor (with ius promovendi), and if possible the Master and Bachelor supervisors or other relevant references.
• final competition with the candidates from other faculties through a presentation with discussion by the TGS Award jury in May 2024.

TGS Award Jury

• Jury members are preferably JA@UT members, one per faculty.
• Jury members can be on the jury for a max. period of 3 years.
• The chair is the Dean of TGS.
• In case jury members have a conflict of interest, they abstain from the deliberations and voting for that candidate, but they may propose to the chair a backup jury member (preferable from JA@UT) to replace them.

2024 TGS Award jury 

• Prof. dr. Ariana Need (dean TGS, chair TGS Award)
• --  (EEMCS)
• --  (ET)
• --  (BMS)
• --  (TNW)
• --  (ITC)

Application form

* Please note: The TGS Award is only available for current UT Master's students.