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Application

Application Guidelines for ph.d. scholarship at the Doctoral Programme in Economics and Business Administration at the Copenhagen Business School.

Invitation for applications for vacant PhD scholarships within Economics and Business Administration research areas are announced at http://job.cbs.dk

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These guidelines will give you a generel description of how to proceed in order to be admitted to the Doctoral Programme in Economics and Business Administration, the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). We recommend that you read Degree Regulations before applying for admission.

There are four requirements which have to be fulfiled in order to be admitted to the Ph.D. degree studies:

1. That the Applicant has the Required Qualifications for Completing a Ph.D. Degree.

This requirement will be evaluated by the following procedure:

Processing of Applications
The director of the Study Committee for the Doctoral Programme will examine your application for complying with formalities, such as a completed Master's degree, an adequate description of your research project, etc. before it will undergo a subject-related assessment in an assessment committee. The result of the assesssment will be sent to you for comments, if any, before your application is considered by the Study Committee for the Doctoral Programme. The processing of your application will take place within three months.

Submitting Applications
Applications should be submitted prior to the deadline of a public announcement.

The application must comprise the following documents in three (3) copies:

  1. Applicationform
  2. Master's degree certificate or other certificates of a corresponding level.
  3. brief curriculum vitae (CV).
  4. list of papers and publications.
  5. a brief decription of the research project (approx. 5 pages) and, if possible, a proposal for a preliminary studyplan.

Further Details about Application and Appendix Requirements:

1. Application Form
To be completed in accordance with the guidelines.

2. Certificates
A copy of a Master's degree certificate or other certificates of a corresponding level must be enclosed.

3. Curriculum Vitae (CV)
A brief curriculum vitae must be enclosed. In particular, it is important to descripe your activities after completion of your Master's degree, as an assessment of whether you will be granted a graduate research fellowship or a Ph.D.-scholarship will be based on these activities.

4. List of Papers and Publications

5. Description of Research Project
The application must contain a brief description of the reserarch project. It should comprise:

  • an account of the project's subject area (brief)
  • a presentation of the problem you intend to focus on
  • an account of its relevance and importance (brief)
  • an account of the theories you wish to include
  • an indication of how a realization of the project will contribute to the development of science, i.e. what do you consider the central scientific contribution in the project. In addition , a specification of the nature of the project's contribution, for instance theory development, further empiricism, falsification of an already existing theory, a solution to a pratical problem, etc.
  • a presentation of the state-of-the-art that may refer to the relevant literature (may be referred to in an appendix)
  • a work schedule (brief) describing the main phases in your research project.

In total, the description of your project should not exceed 5 A4 pages of approximately 600 words. The project should be described in such a way that it is informative to a researcher within the area to which the project belongs. In other words, a popular account will not meet the requirements. Of course, the description should not imply that you know the answers to the questions posed, but clearly reflect that it is a research project. It is important to give an account of the problems and hypotheses you intend to study, including a convincing statement of why you believe you can contribute to a solution or clarification within the framework of a Doctoral Programme. Therefore, a clear focus should be reflected in the description of the project. Of course, in research you are always confronted with uncertainties, failure of theory, insufficiant empiricism, etc. Otherwise, it would not be research. However, you must give an account of the feasibility for clarification, theory development or new empirical data as part of the project i.e. as part of the Ph.D. study. The description of the project should be made in a precise scientific language - in English or Scandinavian. Both contents and form of the description will enter into the assessment of the research project and the applicant.

2. That One or Several Supervisors Can Be Appointed.

As a Ph.D. student you will be attached to a department at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the CBS and a supervisor. The Study Committee for the Doctoral Programme must ensure that the requested connection will bee arranged, and therefore item 1 at the application form must indicate:

  • which Department you wish to be attached to.
  • name of the intended supervisor, if known at the time of application

3. Funding research students

Under the Act on State Support Grants for study it is possible to fund (Ph.D.-scholarship) doctoral students enrolled in doctoral programmes. This funding enables the student to receive around DKK 267.000 per year. The enroling institution futhermore receives funding to cover the costs of supervision, courses, seminars, travel etc. Please notice that you will have to pay taxes in Denmark (approx. 50 %) of the amount.

The ph.d.-scholarships runs for a period of three years and the doctoral students are obliged to teach or do research assistance up till 840 hours within the three years.

A limited number of graduate research fellowships exists for people with some practical experience that want to pursue doctoral study. Such fellowships run at around DDK 295.000 and require at least two years of relevant experience and they last for only 2½ years.

Doctoral students can also be funded through grants from the Danish research councils, the Danish Research Academy and the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences.

4. That the Proposed Individual Study Programme Can Be Approved and Completed within the Specified Period of Study.

When you have been assessed to have the required qualifications for completing a Ph.D. degree study and have provided funding for the study, you have to apply to the Study Committee for the Doctoral Programme for approval of your study programme, i.e. your study plan, your teaching activities, etc. For this purpose a special form, including guidelines is available at the Ph.D. secretariat.

The application for the Ph.D. programme should be submitted to the relevant Doctoral School according to the public announcement.

For further details contact relevant Doctoral School.


Last updated by Afrodita Jeftic 17/04/2007