Application for admissions

Doctoral Candidates

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Become a Doctoral Student at the University of Luxembourg.

Am I eligible?

The University law (art. 32, 3) and the Study regulations (Chapter 1) define access to doctoral studies at the University of Luxembourg.

You are eligible to apply for admission to doctoral studies at the University of Luxembourg if you hold a Master’s degree (or equivalent), as defined in the Act. Please be aware that Master’s degrees from outside Europe need to be equivalent to level 7 as defined in the Luxembourgish law on recognition of degrees.

The first step is to check for open positions or to identify a supervisor if you would like to start self-financed doctoral studies.

Employed

a) Check the University job offers and apply.
Successful applicants receive a full-time work contract and salary.

b) Check job offers at other research institutes in Luxembourg who can enrol doctoral candidates at the University of Luxembourg

Self-Financed

  1. Contact a supervisor and discuss the possible ways of becoming a doctoral candidate. Be aware that you need to find your own funding.

2. Once you have found suitable funding

You have already chosen your dissertation discipline and found your supervisor. The next steps will be to complete the admission procedure. Together with your future supervisor, the Office of Doctoral Studies will guide you through the process.

Please note that all doctoral candidates at the University of Luxembourg are primarily students, irrespective of how their dissertation is funded. The source of funding does not necessarily influence the content of your research, but it may impact your employment status at the University and consequently other benefits.

Once you have been selected via a recruitment process, OR once you have identified a supervisor (in case of self-financed studies), the supervisor will start the academic application procedure and complete the admission request.

The supervisor and the Office of Doctoral Studies (Bureau des études doctorales-BED) will be your main contact point during the application procedure.

In case of a work contract with the University, the Human Resource Department will offer additional guidance.

Only when your file has been completed successfully and the admission has been granted by the Rector, you will be invited to formally register and pay the registration fees. Doctoral candidates can start their studies anytime (the 1st or 15th of each month). Enrolment fees are 200€ per semester.

If you and your future dissertation supervisor would like to pursue a joint supervision (with a partner university), this should be indicated during the application for admission.

During the academic admission process, you will be accepted by a doctoral programme/doctoral school. In most cases this is integrated in the procedure and you do not need to do anything else.

An exception applies in the Doctoral School in Economics, Finance and Management. Your supervisor and the Doctoral School administrators will guide you through this process if you need more information.

Each doctoral candidate needs to be enrolled in one of the doctoral programmes offered by the Doctoral Schools (according to the law of 27 June 2018, article 37).