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.

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