The Institute’s faculty members Sigrid Stagl and/or Stefan Giljum are available to supervise doctoral/PhD theses.

Interested in applying for doctoral studies with us? 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 supervise dissertations dealing with topics that closely 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 work in English, as this makes it easier to submit your work to international peer-reviewed journals.

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

• We acknowledge that you might consider taking on part-time work to cover your expenses. Nevertheless, your primary focus should be on your doctoral studies. Balancing doctoral studies with full-time work is challenging; it’s only feasible if your employer supports your studies by allowing reduced working hours or granting leave during critical phases of your doctoral project.

• Typically, doctoral studies are  completed within 3-4 years (full-time).

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

• The expected outcome of this dissertation are three articles published in or submitted to respected international peer-reviewed journals..

If these conditions align with your objectives, we look forward to receiving your proposal.

For further information about doctoral/PhD programme´s at WU, please visit the WU doctoral/PhD programne´s 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.

If you are interested, get in touch with our office Secretary Barbara Gaal.