We welcome applications from prospective PhD researchers with a wide variety of backgrounds, all related to the field of urban governance. Each application is considered carefully, taking the individual potential of the applicant into account. Before you start your application, please read the admission requirements and the application procedure carefully.
List of admission requirements
We require applicants to have a bachelor's degree and a master degree from a recognised university in a field related to urban development and governance.
The bachelor’s and master’s degrees required to be equivalent to the WO level (research university) in the Netherlands. As educational systems differ across countries, you may consult Nuffic’s overview of international education systems for reference.
We require our applicants to have obtained at least First Class, GPA 3.6, A-, Dutch grade 8.0, or an equivalent with the master's degree.
You do not need to prove your English language proficiency if you are from or have obtained your Masters diploma from one of the following countries: Australia, Canada (except for Quebec), Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States of America.
If you do not meet the above criteria, an English language test is required. We only accept certificates from TOEFL and IELTS as official language tests, which are not older than 2 years at the time of the application submission.
TOEFL:
- 600 Paper-based test
- 250 Computer-based test
- 100 Internet-based test
IELTS:
We require a result of 7.0 overall, with a minimum of 6.0 on each sub-test.
Your research topic and the proposal must fit into one of the IHS main research clusters.
You can choose between submitting a research proposal or a research outline.
In order to be enrolled, you need to be able to prove your fanancial plan, funding scheme in the application form. The financial plan needs to cover the full 4 years of the programme. For more details, please visit our page on Fees and Costs.
Important information about your application
- After the result date of each round, if you are conditionally admitted, you will be invited to complete the registration form for official diploma validation at the Central Admissions Office of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR).
- This validation process can take 4-8 weeks. To avoid delays, we strongly advise you to submit, already at the application stage, the same documents required by the Central Admissions Office.
List of documents required by Central Admissions Office:
- Valid passport
- Copy of English language certificate (IELTS/TOEFL or equivalent)
- Legalised/ certified copy of Bachelor diploma, including the complete grade transcripts
- Legalised/ certified copy of Master diploma, including the complete grade transcripts
Important note:
- Take care that the copies of your documents are legalised, well readable and fit for further scanning
- In case your documents are not in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian or Spanish, a translation by a sworn translator in one of these languages should be attached to them. Please upload both the translated pages and the original pages.
Important for scholarship applicants
- Conditional vs. unconditional letters: On the official result dates we can only issue a conditional admission letter. If your scholarship requires an unconditional admission letter, you must provide the necessary additional documents. Clearly indicate this in your application form so that the Admissions Office can advise you.Please find the requested additional documents in section Diploma Validation.
PhD Urban Development and Governance
Online Application Form
Application
To apply for the PhD programme in Urban Development and Governance, you need to fill in the IHS Online Application form and attach the necessary documents described in the Application procedure section. You need to provide all documents required in order to process to the next step. This application form is the first step in a conversation, and we are available to guide you through the application process.
In the section of application procedure, you can find an overview of how the application process for this PhD programme works and a careful explanation of every step. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our admissions office at admission@ihs.nl.
You can also contact us by booking an online session with our admission officer or programme officer via this link.
Application Rounds, Deadlines & Result Dates
We run five application rounds each year. Each round has a fixed deadline and a corresponding result date; applications are assessed after the round closes. Please plan your submission accordingly.
See the Admissions Timeline in Application Procedure section.
Questions? Reach out to us!
- Email address
- admission@ihs.nl