Admission requirements and application procedures

Admission requirements

To be eligible for enrolment at the PhD School applicants must have a 2-year master’s degree or have passed examinations at an equivalent level (min. 120 ECTS credits). Furthermore, the academic field, in which you obtained the master’s degree must be academically relevant to the PhD project you intend to carry out.

The Danish Agency for Higher Education determines whether degrees from non-Danish universities corresponds to 120 ECTS credits / a two-year master’s degree. Read about recognition of non-Danish qualification. This assessment will be handled after the application has been submitted for applicants that are shortlisted and selected for assessment.

Excellent communication skills in English are also required.

The application

Your application must normally include a project description, CV, and documentation of your master’s degree. There can be deviations from this in the job advertisement, if so, please follow the instructions in the advertisement. The section below contains requirements which apply to all applicants, as well as additional requirement which only apply to certain applicants.

Procedures and requirements for all applications for enrolment and employment

Language

Normally the language for applications is English, but you can also submit your application in Danish, Norwegian or Swedish.

Enclose the following documents

1. Documentation of your bachelor’s and master’s degree.
  • Copy of bachelor’s degree diploma and transcript of grades
  • Copy of your master’s degree diploma and transcript of grades.
    (If these are not available before the application deadline, a pre-approval from the supervisor of the master thesis, and a transcript of records must be submitted).

Bachelor's and master’s degree diplomas and transcripts of records from non-Danish universities that are not written in English, Danish, Norwegian or Swedish must be translated into one of these languages.

2. CV

Your CV should include:

  • Educational track record
  • Relevant prizes or other excellent academic results
  • A list of peer-reviewed publications (if applicable)
  • A list of popular dissemination publications or activities (if applicable)
  • Other experiences relevant to the proposed research project, e.g., work as research assistant, conference planning and/or other research activities

Please do not submit letters of recommendation. They will be disregarded in the assessment.

3. Project description (including study plan) and bibliography.

Please include with your application a description of the research project that you propose to undertake during the 3-year PhD programme. In addition to the list below, please read the call for proposals carefully to include the specifications of subject, qualifications etc, that may be required in individual calls and scholarships.

The project description must not exceed 12,000 characters (including spacing). The count includes text of the proposal, captions, figures, footnotes/endnotes, but does not include the list of references/bibliography). Exceeding the limit will result in the dismissal of your application.

Your project description must contain:

  • A motivated introduction
  • Objective(s) of the project
  • Problem statement
  • A description of the international state of the art within the relevant research field(s), a theoretical framework for the project and central concepts.
    • Proposed method and identification of empirical data.
    • Expected results.
    • A timetable or study plan for how you expect to complete the project in six semesters.
  • Also make a note in the project description, if you expect special expenses that relate to the project (special equipment etc).

Write your project proposal in a concrete and comprehensive style so that non-specialists can understand it. The application is often evaluated by researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.