 Next, we have the best PhD university presented by Ava Zellmans. Hello everyone. I'm Ava and I'm here to speak on behalf of the PhD community of Tilburg. Because, and you might not have realized this, we are actually a pretty big group. But most of the times we aren't in places like this. We're busy. We're busy teaching, supervising students, helping with the research of others, and quite possibly sometimes we actually get around to working on our PhD research. Where we aren't often though is in places like this, where policy is formed and takes root. But PhDs are a huge part of our university. Over a quarter of all academic staff are PhDs. If we look at the number of FTE, it is a third of all academic staff even. That's an enormous group. That's why we feel that the PhD candidate should be a big part of policy making. We'd like to make the case that the university that values the PhD candidate and what he or she creates is truly a university that is ready for 2025 and beyond. Because we feel that we are at crossroads. Where at one hand we can choose to go the route of a university that reads its PhDs as a purely financial asset. Everything is completely geared towards spending the absolute minimum per PhD. Towards investing the bare minimum in supervision while pressuring the PhD to be faster than you mainly possible. This way the university could make a profit on PhDs due to the PhD bonus that the university gets from the government for every finished PhD dissertation. This also means that we want a huge number of candidates of course. And indeed we have seen how the number of PhD defenses at Tilburg University has almost tripled the past 10 years. And how our university takes pride in delivering the fastest graduating PhDs of the country. To go further down this road could turn our university in a PhD farm. And that's a place where most of us wouldn't like to work. We could also go down another route. One in which the university places the quality of the thesis before quantity. Where it does everything to ensure that talent is attracted to our university. That talent can develop at our university. It would mean top level dissertations and thus renown for Tilburg University. It would mean that Tilburg would have the first pick at future academic top talent. Because we train them. It would entail the very opposite of the PhD farm. It would be Tilburg University as the best PhD university. We feel that that goal should be part of Tilburg University's ambitions. It should be central even. We will never be able to compete internationally as an institution. If we downgrade ourselves and our processes for easy gains. We need to compete on quality not quantity. And we feel we can do that. Since our university is already taking steps in that direction. Continuing that way needs to start with three simple things. One, excellent legal status. PhD candidates should be employees. They should have the same rights as all other staff members. And should be able to exercise those rights. Because they are staff. They teach. They supervise students. They conduct research and publish. They do everything any other staff member does. So, sick leave and parental leave should not cut into our own research time. As it does now. But should be compensated. Just as it is with all other employees. Also an adequate vision should be developed towards the status of international bursary PhDs. A group of around 70 PhDs which is consistently growing. These PhDs do not qualify as students nor as employees. And are therefore left without any rights. The university receives the PhD bonus when these PhDs graduate. And if we truly want to live up to our international ambitions. We should take care of them like we take care of all other PhDs. Two, quality. Everyone should have four years to write their dissertation. Shorten it and the quality will suffer. And we definitely should start supervising our supervisor. We need to make sure we know what's going on when it comes to supervision. So who is supervising too many PhD candidates? Are there places with unusually high numbers of seized PhD trajectories? It's amazing that we don't have the answers to these questions. As a university our job is investigating. But we don't investigate our own job. The same goes for teaching by PhDs. If we want quality in our lecture halls. We have to invest in their training as teachers. Three, room for personal development. PhDs need to be given the space to work on their own broader development. And to visit conferences and the like. We also want to have the space to exercise our creativity. Innovations only happens when you give people room to breathe. We also challenge the university to develop a view on career development of PhDs. 80% of the PhDs won't find a job in academia after their thesis defense. To prepare them for a future outside academia we have to step outside our comfort zones. And see whether internships with corporations and governmental organizations can be organized. Because nobody gains by Tilburg University delivering the highest educated unemployed of the country. So that's three things. Legal status, quality first, and room for development. What we are saying is that Tilburg University could win the international red race for academic talents. And be the very best PhD university in the country. Possibly even the continent. If we just put these simple things and with them the PhD candidates front and center. We're already taking steps in that direction. It's now time to explicitly choose this route. Thank you very much.