True to its own principles, MERIAN takes application and selection as a collaborative effort. A search for substantial fit between candidate and MERIAN, but also an exploration of a viable context in which the MERIAN candidate can pursue the PhD in Maastricht style artistic research. MERIAN sees this search as a search for correspondence (cf. Ingold) and takes this literally by initiating a correspondence with potential candidates.

MERIAN engages PhD candidates from both academic and artistic backgrounds in Maastricht-style artistic research. This specific approach to artistic research entails fundamental collaboration between academia and art, organized around societal issues with a focus on novel research methods informed by anthropology and Science and Technology Studies, as well as current artistic practices. The focus of existing PhD programs in the Netherlands is on research into and from individual artistic practices. Instead, the Maastricht initiative, issue-driven, practice based and emphasizing collaboration, provides a unique and relevant supplement.

The initiative builds on existing expertise and successful established collaborations between the initiating institutions with the goal to provide a much-needed collaborative environment bridging the arts and academia.

MERIAN partners invest in a limited number of PhD candidates because we believe that artistic research is work and in precarious environments (both in arts and academia) in which the position of PhDs is increasingly insecure, we are attentive to what is necessary to be able to do research at all. Besides this contribution of partners, for each PhD trajectory in MERIAN, as part of the selection procedure, specific additional funding should be raised by candidates themselves in collaboration with MERIAN. There are also possibilities for PhD candidates with a scholarship, with self-funding or external funding. If you are interested in MERIAN, and if your research project is already (partly) funded, MERIAN invites you to apply as well.

For more information about the application including the full application procedure, please contact info@merianmaastricht.nl or use our contact page.