Ombuds Assistance and Wellbeing Support for Doctoral Students
Faculty and institutional ombudspeople for doctoral students
As doctoral students, your first point of contact for most things is likely your supervisor. However, for issues that you are not comfortable discussing with your supervisor, or in cases of conflict between you and your supervisor, you can turn to your faculty ombudspeople as your first point of contact. Faculty ombudspeople are appointed to be easily approachable contacts inside your own faculty who can provide guidance and who will treat any issues you raise with them confidentially. In some cases the faculty ombudspeople will refer you to other mediatory bodies (cf. below), e.g. if the solution to the problems you raise fall outside the remit of their work as an ombudsperson.
The institutional ombudsperson deals with general complaints for matters concerning education.
Other support and mediators
- Trustpunt, the University’s Confidential Advisor service (vertrouwenspersonen)
- The Commission for Scientific Integrity (Commissie Wetenschappelijke Integriteit)
- In some cases, the situation may require for you to be referred to bodies outside of Ghent University; for instance, when you are having problems or complaints as a PhD fellow of the Research Foundation-Flanders, you will be referred to the Research Foundation-Flanders.
- Human Resources (e.g. labor-related issues)
Individual Psychological Support for PhD Students
Doctoral students at UGent can contact a psychologist for short-term, individual counseling when the doctoral process is mentally or emotionally demanding, e.g. due to stress, performance pressure, perfectionism, motivational problems, or other psychological issues. Counseling is short-term (max. 8 sessions) and solution-oriented. If necessary, we will look for more appropriate external assistance together.
For more information, visit the intranet page.
How to report transgressive behaviour as a PhD candidate?
