Erik de Bruijn, who is the chair holder of TDG, kindly introduced us to the ambience of the group and their work: "The PhD programme in the TDG consists of several phases that require different kinds of output. For example: the student does research at the UT in the first year but then he does field study in his native country and comes back to analyse the results. In the last year they write the thesis in the Netherlands."
The PhD students of the group are mainly foreigners from Eastern Asia or Northern Africa and a mother-company (or university) sends them to the UT. They are still employed there when working for the TDG and they will return after finishing their PhD. This mother-company pays for the study in the TDG and finances their living expenses. According to professor de Bruijn 80% of the students are self-paying and only a small part come via other supporting institutes such as the ITC in Enschede.
For the supporting company or University there is no loss of intelligence: the former candidates will contribute with the knowledge and experience gained during the PhD to the prosperity of the institution that send them from their native country.
Two of the TDG's PhD students are Christopher Mahemba and Alugoro Mulyowahyudi.
Christopher: 'I'm an engineer and employed by the University of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, where I will be teaching when I go back home. Here I'm doing my PhD in the topic of innovation in small business. I started with this project last year. I spent six months here and then went back home for another six months to do field work. There, I went to 150 small companies in five different regions of Tanzania asking questions about the topic. Now, I have come back to analyse the results.'
Having a different background than Business & Management is positive according to Christopher: 'Combining engineering and business is excellent because you can solve management problems and you also know about problems in areas such as production. As a professor that is important for me, as I will be able to provide the students with a lot of practical examples'.
For Alugoro the situation is different: 'I've graduated in management of engineering and I come from PT.Krakatau, the largest steel company in Southeast Asia. They are supporting my studies here because they have interest in training human resources to face competition and globalisation. Apart from that, they will use the knowledge I get doing case studies in the topic of managing strategicalliances between companies from developed and developing countries. In the future, instead of competition we will have to make alliances and the key-factor I found for these alliances to be successful is mutual trust between the companies. In doing so, the big issue is how to deal with a different culture, with the different points of views and customs in every culture.'
Both Christopher and Alugoro think that being on campus is a nice and pleasant experience. Alugoro says: 'I'm living on campus and I have brought my family here because it is very hard to live far from them. I also don't want to miss my child growing up. Living on campus is expensive but it's nice for my family, we have all the facilities, it's safe, we like it very much'. Christopher adds: 'I like this system of being here and then going back home because I think that if I come here with my family for four years nonstop, I would be a stranger when I go back. Being far from home for so long makes you loose contact with relatives and friends. But, that is not my case because even though I'm here now I'm coming back soon and my social life is still going on in Tanzania.'
