The Netherlands has two main types of higher education: regular university education, offered at 47 universities, and higher professional education, which is offered at 54 universities of professional education, known in The Netherlands as “hogescholen” (HBO).

The regular Universities conduct research and offer training in the arts and sciences. Higher professional education has a more strongly practical orientation, with courses generally less theoretical and more practice oriented.

University graduates, who used to earn the title “doctorandus” (abbreviated as drs), “ingenieur” (engineer – abbreviated as ir) or “meester” (master – abbreviated as mr), depending on their field of study, now graduate with a Bachelor’s degree after three years. The Dutch Master’s degree has therefore become a postgraduate degree, instead of the first degree that it used to be in the Netherlands.

Foreign graduates with a first degree equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree who are seeking postgraduate education in the Netherlands, may be admitted to a regular Master’s programme at a university, but may have to complete additional requirements first.

This route aside, there are three special types of postgraduate study programs to which foreign graduates holding a degree equivalent to a Dutch university or HBO degree may be admitted: professional programmes, academic programmes and Doctoral programmes.

These courses are at a higher level than the HBO Bachelor’s degree, involving in-depth specialisation in the field in which the original degree was awarded. Some lead to the award of a Master’s degree. These courses are not usually taken by university graduates.

These are courses involving specialisation in a different subject area. For Dutch university graduates, some of these courses can lead to the award of a second Master’s degree.

The degree of Doctor is earned by conducting original research under the direct guidance of a professor, and then reporting and discussing the results in a dissertation, which can take the form of a book. No additional coursework is required on top of the dissertation.

The Doctoral candidate works independently and full time, usually for a period of four to five years. Foreign students can apply for a job as a promovendus in a Dutch university (eg in sciences).

So-called ‘taught’ PhD programmes are rare in the Netherlands.

Quite often, a foreign graduate student can earn a Doctorate using the ‘sandwich’ model: he or she prepares a research project at the Dutch university, conducts fieldwork in the home country, and then returns to the Dutch university to write up and defend the dissertation.

For additional information, please visit: www.nuffic.nl