Three new dedicated PhD programmes granted by China Scholarship Council

Earlier this year, the Faculty of Science and Engineering has been awarded three new dedicated PhD programmes granted by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) together with Chinese partners. This concerns a new programme on Intelligent Systems and Control with Dalian University of Technology (DLUT), a new programme on Dairy for Nutrition and Health with Northwest A&F University (NWAFU) and a renewed programme on Sustainable Dairy with China Agricultural University (CAU). All were selected out of several hundreds of applications and are open to all interested FSE research institutes.

In the coming three years (2021-2023) the three programmes will have:

• 6 PhD degree students and 3 visiting PhD students from DLUT (2+1 per year. Prof. Jacquelien Scherpen and Prof. Ming Cao from ENTEG built the initial contact.)
• 9 PhD degree students from NWAFU (3 per year)
• 15 PhD degree students from CAU (5 per year. This programme has been implemented for two terms in the years 2015-2020 and 23 PhD’s registered at the UG. This is renewed for the third term.)

China Scholarship Council (CSC) granted these dedicated PhD programmes under the scheme of the Innovative Talents International Training Program, which is in parallel to the programme for general open applications each year. CSC allocates the dedicated funding for these programmes to the partner universities for selected candidates.

• There are two rounds of selection s each year for each programme, the first deadline in March (same as general open applications) and the second in September.
• Chinese partners pre-select candidates and the FSE is responsible for the final selection by means of interviewing candidates and jointly developing PhD research project proposals.
• Chinese partners submit the applications of the selected candidates to CSC before the deadline and results are announced within two months after CSC has completed the eligibilities check.
• When conditions allow, FSE will try to match researchers of both sides through workshops each year and/or jointly (pre-) select the right candidates at the same time for potential joint supervision.

The Research Strategy and Partnerships team, part of the Faculty Office of FSE, is responsible for developing and coordinating these PhD programmes together with interested FSE research institutes. In line with FSE’s China policy, the purposes of these programmes are to build up long-term and sustainable partnerships with matching counterparts and to strengthen the research collaboration in aligning with FSE research themes. FSE is also implementing another programme on Smart Energy System (2020-2022, 4 PhDs registered at FSE in 2020) with North China Electric Power University and concluded two programmes on Biobased Economy (2016-2018, 6 PhDs registered at FSE) and Dairy for Nutrition and Sustainability (2017-2019, 4 PhDs registered at FSE) with NWAFU.

For more information, please contact Wanli Zheng.