The bottleneck with a staff

After four years of research, everything comes together at the doctoral dissertation defence. It is the academic high point of a doctoral candidate. A delightful, memorable point, while at the same time feeling like a logistical process where new doctors are supplied one after the other.

A recent Delta article shows that the system is under pressure. The growing number of PhD candidates means that the average three to four months of waiting has grown to six or eight months.

The solution that TU Delft is now looking into is just as surrealistic as practical: a ‘light doctoral defence ceremony’ and an extra beadle. Imagine that. For those who are not acquainted with doctoral defence ceremonies, the beadle is the official that officiates the ceremony at the doctoral dissertation defence. The beadle holds a staff and says “Hora est” (it is time) at the end of the ceremony when the time has come. And apparently this role is so important that the entire doctoral dissertation defence system is largely dependent on it.

TU Delft currently has three beadles in service, amounting to 1.74 FTEs. I find this quite surprising. If this would really be the bottleneck, you would think that something more efficient could be arranged in terms of organisation. On top of that, it is even more striking if you look at the practical solutions that are discussed in the Delta article. It transpires that extending a couple of extra cables to hold doctoral dissertation defences in a second hall would cost hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands? For cables? At a university where complex technical systems are designed every day? It looks like we have gotten stuck somewhere in the process.

The irony is obvious. TU Delft is a major player in technology and innovation, but in terms of doctoral dissertation defences the critical infrastructure appears to lie outside these areas. It lies with the beadle – the official that enters the hall holding a staff and closes the session with the doctoral candidate. Four years of research, international committees and hundreds of dissertation pages. And in the end the moment suprême is dependent on a medieval role that determines if the ceremony can start and when it ends.

Even more striking is that this situation appears to be a surprise

Even more striking is that this situation appears to be a surprise. The number of PhD candidates has grown for years. And there are forecasts available. Has nobody ever seen that we are heading towards a bottleneck? Could we not have foreseen this earlier? Or is it just how things are being done nowadays?

We see this in other areas too. The housing market, emissions, aging populations, pensions – developments that were predicted for decades but where action is only taken if the problems pile up.

Maybe we should just continue that way of thinking and leave everything to the market. No doctoral defence ceremony light, but different packages. The basic package: a Teams link and a PDF of the diploma. Congratulations and good luck. The premium package: Aula, champagne and oysters. Efficient, scalable and future proof.

And somewhere in the hall will still be someone holding a staff who will say when it is time.
Apparently the real bottleneck of Dutch academia.