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Looking for a place to do your PhD? Find out more about our PhD programme in Urban Development and Governance from some of the IHS PhD candidates: Genea, Vicky, Andie and Taslim or go visit for more details! Find out more about IHS on https://www.ihs.nl/en . Find out more about our Masters: https://www.ihs.nl/en/master/urban-management-and-development https://www.ihs.nl/en/master/urban-governance Find out more about our PhD programme: https://www.ihs.nl/en/education/phd-urban-development-and-governance Find out more about our short courses: https://www.ihs.nl/en/education/short-courses IHS is the center for urban development studies in Rotterdam. I am the coordinator of the PhD programme and I also have the responsibility of doing the supervision for some of our candidates. Our Institute is a very international one, we have people of very diverse backgrounds and cultures and working on issues in urban management and development. At our institute we have three core activities. We work on education, advisory services and academic and applied research. But also the fact that we are really trying to bridge academic research to practice is something very unique that we offer. When I was looking for the perfect or the most suitable PhD programme, I got very interested in IHS because even before you start you know you are going to spend 4 years in your room researching and reading, but when I came to IHS I found extra values that is this connection with the fieldwork, with the project and with the consultancy that they have. These make my PhD more interactive and more related to the real society and the works. We focus on issues of urban development all over the world and also mainly in emerging economies. I think that makes us one of the few institutes that do this. I really enjoy my PhD work at IHS because they have a diverse multidisciplinary kind of courses, ranging from land water management, infrastructural management, housing and city competitiveness. What I thought is very useful here is that most of the publications you read about come the same university, so sometimes when I have an extra question the only thing I need to do is knock to the next door and say ‘Can we have a talk about that?’ For my case it was because the promoter, our PhD coordinator Professor Julian Eden is one of the most prominent experts in water governance, so this really relates to my topic on water governance in Indonesia. I think what also helps is that yes, IHS is a part of the Erasmus graduate school of social sciences and humanities. They provide also excellent training workshops and courses on how to get your PhD trajectory on the track. At IHS we also have a PhD round table talk, where we come together to talk about our theses and encourage one another, discussing and sharing views about how to improve the work of one another. Being in Rotterdam at first was challenging and also worrying, but both IHS and EUR provide us with nice working environment here. Rotterdam had an influence in my decision, because it’s a city that at the same time can offer you things to do and cultural activities and at the same time it is very welcoming and international city, where you can also spend your free time. Hopefully we’ll see you in the future to work together on making cities better.
