• If you have a long-term and/or serious illness or other, unique personal circumstances.
• If the situation surrounding the coronavirus has caused a delay in terms of finalising your PhD.
• If it will not be possible for you to proceed with the defence ceremony in the short term because you have to be available for a challenging, corona-related duty in the medical arena.

In all cases, postponement is to be agreed in consultation between the Office of the Beadle, the PhD candidate and the supervisors.

Until further notice, this is only possible by email: bureaupedel@uva.nl and CvP-secretariaat-bb@uva.nl.

The maximum number of attendees allowed is set at 30 for the Aula and 25 for the Agnietenkapel. These concern the directly involved (you and your paranymphs, the chair, supervisors and members of the doctoral committee) and your guests. When committee members participate through Zoom, you are allowed to invite more guests. You can inform the Office of the Beadle of this.

Members of defence committees who cannot be present on location due to travel restrictions or cold/flu symptoms can still participate via Zoom. Technical support will ensure a logical on-site setup for the interaction between the live and online attendees. For the ceremony to take place on location the candidate, one of the supervisors, the rector (chair) and at least one of the committee members have to be present. If this is not the case the ceremony will take place online.

For PhD candidates who are unable to come to Amsterdam due to travel restrictions, defence ceremonies online will remain a possibility for now.

All defences in the period from September onwards can also be followed via a livestream by family, friends and colleagues (and other interested parties) if they cannot be physically present. You will receive the livestream link from the web lecture service.

Unfortunately it is not possible to change from the Agnietenkapel to the Aula, because educational activities are also planned in the Aula in September.

Yes, you will receive a registration form from the Office of the Beadle.

In principle, defences are always public. Due to the limited capacity in the Agnietenkapel, defence ceremonies at this location will not be accessible to interested parties. For the Aula, guests of the doctoral candidate have priority. If there are still places available, other interested parties can register via a form on the website.

At this time, it is not allowed to order catering for the congratulatory moment afterwards. This congratulatory moment will take half an hour and there is a maximum of 20 people in the Aula complex, 25 in the Agnietenkapel.

If it turns out that the new time is not feasible for you or (some of) those involved in your defence, please contact the Office of the Beadle by email at BureauPedel@uva.nl. They will then contact you to see if the defence can be moved to another date or a different location.

Yes, in that case the location does not need to be mentioned on the title page.

The Office of the Beadle will make amendments to the location and/or date & time specified in the three copies of your thesis by means of a sticker. You will need to ensure you amend the location and/or date & time specified in the electronic version of your thesis yourself. 

From 1 September, PhD candidates must submit three copies. Send these by post to: University of Amsterdam, attn. Office of the Beadle, Handboogstraat 6, 1012 XM Amsterdam.

You will need to discuss this with your supervisor. The doctorate regulations stipulate that the members and chair of the doctoral committee must be in receipt of a printed copy. If everyone agrees to waive this requirement, then an electronic copy will suffice.

All participants take part in the defence ceremony online from their home or their workplace.

The Beadle classes are currently held online, Mondays at 12.00. You can read the Beadle class information here. These Beadle classes are only meant for question regarding the defence ceremonies on location. When you will defend online, the Beadle will contact you.

Yes, there will be. You can also give a PowerPoint presentation in Zoom if you so choose. Give this a trial run in advance when testing your connection to Zoom. You will receive an email on this from the Office of the Beadle.

Yes, assistants may be present in the same room as you, as long as they maintain sufficient distance (1.5 metres). or they can send an email to the beadle in order to attend the ceremony  as a participant.

From Friday, 15 May, UvA PhD defences will be livestreamed on the university’s YouTube channel. This means that friends, family and colleagues of the PhD candidates, as well as other interested parties, can attend the ceremonies, which are currently taking place online via Zoom.

The livestreams are ‘unlisted’ on the UvA YouTube channel; that is, you need a direct link to follow a livestream. Doctoral candidates will receive the link from the Office of the Beadle and can then share it with friends, family and colleagues. In addition, the links are added to the defence ceremony announcements (in Dutch) on the UvA’s website, so that other interested parties can also take note.

The link to a livestream will only be added in the web announcement if the doctoral candidate has agreed to this (the Office of the Beadle will ask each doctoral candidate for explicit permission in advance). Immediately after the ceremony ends, the link will be deactivated and the stream will be removed. Of course, the consultations of the defence committee will - as always – be held in private and therefore not visible in the livestreams.

Yes, a recording will be made through Zoom. This will be emailed to you shortly after your defence ceremony. You will then be able to share the recording with your family and friends if you like.

A PhD statement will be emailed to you the day after you successfully defend your thesis. This statement will serve as evidence that you have been awarded your PhD. The Office of the Beadle will send the extracts in English and Dutch from the doctoral register to your home address from 6 April onwards. This constitutes an official document, with the same force as the PhD certificate. The extracts will be backdated accordingly.

Each and every successful PhD candidate deserves a graduation ceremony. There are plans to organise one or more graduation ceremonies in the Aula or Agnietenkapel as soon as this is possible. You will be notified in due course.