Plan early for your next career step
Postdoc appointments in the Dutch university sector are usually temporary. A postdoc is a great moment to build your next profile. Whether you are aiming for academia, industry, policy, or entrepreneurship, try to prepare early by developing your network, broadening your CV, and looking ahead to what comes after your current contract.
Extending your contract
Fixed-term appointments for academic staff are generally limited in duration, and for postdocs the practical rule is that successive temporary appointments often reach a maximum of around four years.
Despite this, for some faculties, it is difficult to get approval for a contract extension. So, if you get funding for an extension, apply early through your Head of Department, to see if it is possible. Note that the extension likely needs to be research-focused rather than teaching-focused.
Because of this, it is wise to start exploring your next step well before your contract ends!
Staying in academia? Start thinking about grants early
If you would like to continue in academia, personal grants can be an important next step.
At the University of Twente, the Grants Office can help researchers with funding strategy, training, and proposal preparation, and UT’s personal grants pages give an overview by career stage.
Depending on your field and career stage, consider applying for a small personal or exploratory grant such as NWO XS. If you are aiming to stay in academia, you can also explore larger collaborative or open-competition grants together with your PI, supervisor, or senior collaborators, such as NWO M, M-2, L, or XL schemes where relevant to your domain. Engineering-oriented researchers may also explore the NWO Open Technology Programme.
For larger long-term grants below, it is necessary to get an embedding guarantee as you will likely go over the 4-year limit. Unfortunately, getting an embedding guarantee, including for incoming postdocs, is currently not possible for many faculties in UT such as ITC, therefore you would likely need to find another host institution in the Netherlands to offer you the embedding guarantee.
Useful larger funding schemes to explore for postdocs include:
- NWO Veni — for researchers who have recently obtained their PhD (less than 3 years ago) and want to further develop their own ideas. A Veni runs for three years.
- NWO Rubicon — for researchers who have recently obtained their PhD and want to gain experience at a foreign knowledge institute.
- MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships — open to researchers of any nationality; European fellowships are hosted in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country and last 1 to 2 years. However, applicants must meet the mobility rule: you must not have resided or carried out your main activity in the host country for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline.
- ERC Starting Grant — for excellent early-career researchers with 2 to 7 years of experience after the PhD who are ready to develop an independent research line.
International postdocs: the POST-POSTDOC Orientation Year (“zoekjaar”)
If you are an international postdoc the Dutch orientation year residence permit may be relevant.
This permit is intended for people who want to look for work in the Netherlands after graduation, a doctorate, or their postdoc. If you finish your postdoc, and want to stay in the Netherlands to look for other positions, with this visa you can stay for up to one year.
As long as you get your application and payment in before the end of your visa, you can stay in the Netherlands while it is processing.
Two important notes: A Dutch residence permit does not automatically give you the right to work in other Schengen countries. Do not assume you can use the orientation year repeatedly; IND states that a new orientation year is only possible after another qualifying study or research period. Because the rules depend on your exact situation, always check the latest conditions on the IND website.
leave hours
Any remaining leave hours are usually paid out automatically when your contract ends. It is still advisable to check your balance in advance.
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