WGS Lunchtime Workshops for PhD Supervisors

2026

Quality assessment of the PhD thesis as supervisor and as thesis committee member

The main question for the workshop is: when is a thesis good enough?

We will show some background information on thesis quality as mentioned in the doctoral degree regulations. After that, participants will discuss a selection of related topics in subgroups. We will ask the groups to share best practices and issues/questions from their own practice. The Academic Board members may reflect on the points discussed. Also, we will make sure that we report back to the Academic Board about the main conclusions from this workshop.

Organisers: Anouk Geelen & Peter Vermeulen (Wageningen Graduate Schools - WGS)

With reflections by Eveline van Leeuwen and Jakob Wallinga (Academic Board members)

Supervision is contagious: What we teach our PhD candidates when we are not teaching.

When we work with PhD candidates, we deliberately share knowledge, methods, and research skills. But we pass on much more than that; often without noticing. How we react when things fail, how comfortable we are with uncertainty, how we disagree, how we treat others, and even what we consider a “good scientist” to be.

In this interactive workshop, Enrique Asin Garcia, Supervisor of the Year 2026, invites us to explore this hidden genealogy of academic life and examine this less visible side of supervision together. Through stories, dilemmas, and discussion, we will look at the attitudes we inherited from our own supervisors, the ones we may be passing on ourselves, and the role empathy plays when trying to understand someone whose experience differs from our own.

We are not looking for a recipe for good supervision. Enrique is more interested in a few questions that have stayed with him: While we are helping PhD candidates become better researchers, what kind of researchers are we helping them become? And what kind of people? What do our PhD candidates inherit from us, and what will they pass on?

Organisers: Esther Roquas & Nicole Rodenburg (Wageningen Graduate Schools)

Speaker: Enrique Asin Garcia, Supervisor of the Year 2026

4 June

Use of AI tools in PhD Research at WUR

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have been around in research for quite some time. Over the past years, the subset of generative AI (GenAI) tools is drawing a lot of attention. It’s almost unavoidable to be confronted with news about GenAI, or even with the output from GenAI tools.

In this session, we will discuss the use of AI tools in PhD research and talk about policy and guidelines and recent developments at WUR. During our interactions, we will share experiences of how we engage with our PhD candidates (and more broadly within the chair group) in discussions about independent thinking and similar underlying skill development, and on responsible use of AI tools in the research process. Some examples will be given of AI tool usage.

As organisers, we also hope to hear from you what questions you have on the topic. You can provide your input via the registration form.

Organisers: Carlos Barzola Iza, Theo Jetten, Jochem Jonkman (Wageningen Graduate Schools)

See course schedule