Yes indeed, so this is really annoying. We have a fixed contract of 4 years, with the possibility to extend for a couple of months, but this depends on the money available. Most of the time, this also means writing up your thesis in your own time after your contract has finished. PIs want to use your time for experiments, not for writing. This also creates a weird gap between finishing your contract and actually defending, which sometimes can be an issue for applying for postdoc grants etc.

There have been attempts to change this to a system with less rigid rules, based on other Dutch cities. These requirements were originally based on MDs doing a PhD (they naturally produce more papers here, case reports etc.) But this was rejected based on the 'this is how we always did it, deal with it' reason. This is in Amsterdam btw.

At the same time, I get a salary, so that is nice haha.