From the Dean Graduate School
May, 2022
Dear Henny van Dijk,
The joint Executive Boards of the 4TUs decided to change the degree Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) to the degree Engineering Doctorate (EngD) for graduates from the Technological Design or PDEng programs as of 1 September 2022.
This means that if you graduate on or after 1 September 2022, you will receive a diploma with the degree of EngD. If you graduate before 1 September 2022, you will receive a diploma with the degree of PDEng; however, you are free to use the EngD degree instead as of 1 September 2022, and you may then request an EngD certificate including a supplement explaining the name change.
Why do we switch the degree?
We change our degree because the Universities of Applied Science in the Netherlands are starting with Professional Doctorate (PD) trajectories. Therefore, we want to avoid confusion between those trajectories and our programs at academic level. Only the name of the degree changes; the content of our programs is not affected.
EngD resemble our programs
EngD is used as a degree already in the United Kingdom (UK) for programs that resemble our programs. The national associations for both programs AEngD and 4TU.SAI have been affiliated members since 2012. In the past, we agreed that EngD and PDEng were on the same level.
More information
Do you have any questions? Please contact your program director. There is also more information about the name switch on 4tu.nl/sai. In the upcoming months there will be more communication about the switch.
Best regards,
Paul Koenraad
Dean Graduate School