The Netherlands Centre of Expertise for Doctoral Education (the PhDCentre) was established in 2006. The mission of the PhDCentre is to help improve and promote training for junior researchers, i.e. education of PhD candidates.

The objective is to inform PhD advisors, PhD candidates and university officials about important cases in practice and to supply them with the findings of scholarly research on PhD programs, with a view toward providing a foundation for well-informed decisions.

The PhDCentre has four core responsibilities:

• conducting research on the PhD education
• facilitating the exchange of ‘good practices’ between graduate and research schools
• counselling those involved in setting up PhD programs and supervising PhD candidates.