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The SSC together with the Central Employees Council at Wageningen Research (formerly DLO) make up the WUR Council. In the revised SSC election rules, all PhD candidates registered at a Wageningen graduate school will be allowed to vote, says Guido Camps, a PhD candidate in the Human Nutrition group. He represents the PhD candidates in the SSC and in the WUR Council.
In the last election for two PhD representatives for the WUR Council, only 990 of the approximately 1900 PhD candidates were invited to vote. No invitation was sent to the externally funded PhD candidates. That prompted criticism. The critics said the council should amend its election rules to give the external PhD students the right to vote in the next election. The council did this in its meeting on 8 February. ‘It was important for us that every PhD candidate should get a vote because the WUR Council is the only place where PhD students get a formal say on policy at the university,’ says Camps.