Project management

It is easy to start a project; it is difficult to manage a project  in such a way that your work is efficient and leads to a satisfying result. When you start your PhD research you could consider this as a series of projects (or articles!) that must be finished within a limited timeframe, and according to scientific and academic rules.

With your own research project as a lead, you will develop general skills in managing your projects. You will be learning by doing, so this is a hands-on course. Through peer-feedback (from other course participants), we will critically look at your project plan and perfect it as much as possible. After completion, you will execute it. After six months, we will come back together and evaluate the research project.

Learning goals:

After this course, you will be able to:

• critically reflect on your project plan
• define proper and clear output for your project
• evaluate results of your project
• use various practical project management tools.

Course format and dates:

The course consists of three 4h sessions, and one 4h online session, which takes place ~6 months after the other sessions.

• Winter 2026: tba
• Summer 2026: tba

Other remarks:

• All information will be available via Brightspace and for this a *@rug.nl email address is required. The online meeting after 6 months will be done via Google meet.
• This is a very hands-on course. This means you will receive some explanations and then immediately start working on your project plan.
• Please bring a laptop with you.