Frequently asked questions

If you are employed as a PhD at one of the universities connected to ICO, one of your supervisors is (or is willing to become) an ICO Fellow or Senior Fellow and your research lays within the scope of ICO, you can apply for ICO PhD membership. Also see page: Membership registration requirements for ICO PhD members 

To enroll as an ICO member you have to send in the ICO Project Proposal. It is advised to use to most recent version of the form as published on the website. Officially, the form should be send in by your supervisor, but you can send it in yourself, as long as it is clear your supervisor has seen the form – either by signing the form, and/or by being added in the CC of the email to ICO.

All proposals will be read by the ICO Scientific Committee. The committee meets four times a year. To be sure that your proposal is part of the agenda of the first available meeting date, check their deadlines for sending in your proposal.

When writing the proposal, keep in mind that the committee will pay particular attention to the feasibility of your project. For the committee, it is important that they can see that, as a PhD candidate, you have sufficient basis in the research proposal to bring the research to a successful conclusion. To determine this, the committee will check:

• Is there enough time available for the PhD to complete the project?
• Is the right methodology chosen? With a logical design and the right instruments?
• Is there sufficient insight into the theoretical framework?
• What measures are taken for quality assurance?

Other items they will check are:

• Which thematic groups are chosen
• Which ICO-courses do you expect to follow?

In this manner they will check if you have thought about your needs, and how ICO can provide in these needs.

And… do not worry: no one will be denied as an ICO member, The proposals can be put “on hold”, if the committee needs further information to assess the feasibility, to ensure you will be starting with a project proposal that is realistic.

As soon as you have send in your proposal you are free to register for the courses, and participate in the courses. It is not necessary to wait until you receive the approval of your proposal by the Scientific committee. Just indicate on the registration form that “membership is pending”.

If you want to register for the ICO Introductory course before your proposal is ready, that is possible. Do send an email to ico@uu.nl to indicate when you expect your proposal to be ready. This date should be before the registration deadline for the course. Register for the course indicating that “membership is pending”. As soon as registration for the course closes, it is expected that you have send in your proposal. We will check this with you when the registration deadline is approaching.

To register for a course, fill in the registration form: ICO Course registration