Doctoral

The Institute’s faculty members are available to supervise doctoral/PhD theses in their respective research groups.

Interested in applying for doctoral studies with us?

If you consider asking Sigrid Stagl, Stefan Giljum, Reinhard Mechler, Christian Rammel, and / or Armon Rezai to supervise your dissertation, please note the following conditions:

• In our view, doctoral studies serve as a preparation for work in academia/at research institutes/at think tanks.

• We are happy to consider supervision of dissertations dealing with topics that relate to our research fields.

• Co-supervision is the norm. This way you get more feedback, and the suggestions are based on a broader range of perspectives.

• We prefer to receive your texts in English, as this makes it easier to submit your work to international peer-reviewed journals.

• We normally meet our doctoral students at least once a month for discussions.

• We acknowledge that you may need to take on part-time employment to pay the bills. However, your doctoral studies should be your main activity. It is extremely difficult to combine doctoral studies with full-time work; this option is only realistic if your employer supports your studies by granting a reduction in working hours or leave at key stages of the doctoral project.

• Doctoral studies are normally completed in 3-4 years.

• It is generally possible and recommended to write a cumulative dissertation, which means you primarily focus on writing 3 (or more) publishable papers. These are eventually integrated into a single document, with an added introduction that puts the individual papers into a single, coherent framework, and a discussion of the methods and main findings.

• The expected outcome of a dissertation are three articles suitable for publication in international peer-reviewed journals.

If these conditions are consistent with your goals, we look forward to receiving your proposal.

For further information about doctoral/PhD programs at WU, please visit the WU doctoral/PhD programs info page.

A non-exhaustive list of funding opportunities our PhD candidates have applied to in the past (eligibility criteria might apply) can be found here.