The UvA Faculty of Humanities offers the Finishing Fellowship, which aims to enable self-funded PhD candidates to concentrate more exclusively on the completion of their thesis in their last year. Through the Finishing Fellowship, final-stage PhD candidates who have succeeded in writing an advanced draft of their thesis without the support of structural funding, can apply for a temporary paid position to support the final stage of their PhD trajectory.

The deadline for applications in the 2026-1 round is June 4th 2026. A second round for this year has a deadline in October 2026. 

What can be applied for? 

PhD candidates can apply for the Finishing Fellowship, which will consist of a temporary contract as a PhD, for 0,5 fte for a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12 months. PhD candidates are required to deliver a completed dissertation (defined as "dissertation submitted to the examination committee") by the end of the fellowship period. The fellow is expected to reside and holds the right to work in the Netherlands during the period of the fellowship. Exceptions to this rule depend on the possibility of cross-border employment regulations.  

Applicants are encouraged to consult their School about the options available to them.

Who can apply? 

Only PhD candidates who are currently registered as self-funded PhD candidate (UNL type 4) at one of the AIHR Research Schools and have been registered as such for the past two years are eligible to apply. 

Applications by PhD candidates who have previously received a PhD fellowship or any multi-year scholarship aimed at obtaining a PhD from a university, funding body or other institution, in the Netherlands or abroad, will not be considered. 

If you have any doubts or questions regarding your eligibility, please contact Anne van Dam (aihr-fgw@uva.nl).

Application requirements 

To apply, the selection committee requests a PDF file will the following components, in this order: 

• a description of the PhD project (max. 500 words);
• a full academic CV;
• a detailed overview of the chapters that have been written to date (including a word count for each chapter);
• a month-by-month schedule of the work to be carried out during the fellowship, based on the fte’s and number of months you are applying for;
• a letter of recommendation from both supervisors, which needs to comment on the current status of the candidate’s project and the viability of completing the project by the end of the fellowship period;
• a PDF containing the complete text of all chapters written to date.

Please make sure to include the name of your research school in the file name.

Applications assessment 

Applications will be selected on the basis of the following criteria: 

• the current status of the project and the viability of finishing the dissertation within the requested time;
• the capacity of the supervisory team to support the timely finishing of their PhD candidates;
• the scientific and/or societal impact potential of the candidate, as evidenced by the CV of the candidate, and the letters of recommendation.  

A committee of experienced supervisors will evaluate the applications and draft a prioritized list of eligible candidates that convincingly meet the above criteria. Due to the popularity of the Finishing Fellowships in earlier years, there might be more eligible candidates that convincingly meet the criteria than there are fellowships. In this case, the Research School Director will discuss a suitable mechanism for selection with its selection committee.

To apply for this round of Finishing Fellowships, please send your application in one pdf document to the secretary of the committee, Anne van Dam (email: aihr-fgw@uva.nl) by noon (12:00 CET) on the 4^th of June 2026. Please make sure to include the name of your research school in the file name. Applications will be assessed by a review committee. Candidates will be notified of the result no later than 6 weeks after the deadline. The starting date of the fellowship will be determined in consultation with the candidate but ideally will start no later than September 2026.

Finishing Fellowships - call 2026-1