Application deadlines
The next deadline for sending your demand of admission to the Economic's Doctoral Committee is available here.
All files submitted to the doctoral committee have to be sent 2 weeks prior to the deadline announced above to Isabelle Portzenheim by email (PDF, in a single file) or brought to her office.
Any file sent past that deadline will be studied at the next doctoral committee meeting.
The application file (see the details in Step 0 or Step 1) must be sent to Isabelle Portzenheim in electronic format (PDF, in a single file).
The ESPO doctoral administrative coordinator, Isabelle Portzenheim, is located at the ESPO Faculty - Place Montesquieu 4/L2.05.01 - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Admission criteria and Doctoral regulation at UCL
The Admission criteria are defined in the UCL Doctoral Regulation (for all the students who register for the first time after 14/09/2014).
NOTE: a specific regulation for the PhD. in Economics is available soon.
Steps
The pre-admission is an optional step, primarily intended to allow for qualified candidates to define their project and supervisor, while pursuing courses and integrating in the doctoral programme.
PreAdmission is commonly and mainly used for VISA demand, fellowship demands, ….
The pre-admission application is to be sent to the Doctoral Bureau in Economics through its administrator in electronic format (PDF, in a single file).
The following elements must be contained in the electronic admission file :
- Identity, full name (scanned copies of identity card and/or passport)
- Contact information (address, telephone and email)
- CV and copies of obtained university degrees
- Proof of completion of Master’s degree in economics 120 ECTS with honors or equivalent, terminating undergraduate and graduate university studies of at least 300 ECTS.
- A student with a Master’s degree 120 ECTS obtained with honors or equivalent in a different field may be granted access after validating up to 60 ECTS of graduate coursework in management or equivalent.
- Letter of support from a faculty member to act as permanent supervisor.
- Research proposal
- Proposal for a research training programme
The Doctoral Bureau validates the information in the application with respect to admissibility as a PhD student and writes a decision (accept/reject) that is sent to the candidate and his supervisor and supervisory panel.
The admission to the doctoral school constitutes the first mandatory step in the doctoral process. The admission application is to be sent to the Doctoral Bureau in Economics through its administrator in electronic format (PDF, in a single file).
The following elements must be contained in the electronic admission file :
- Identity, full name (scanned copies of identity card and/or passport)
- Contact information (address, telephone and email)
- CV and copies of obtained university degrees
- Proof of completion of Master’s degree in economics 120 ECTS with honors or equivalent, terminating undergraduate and graduate university studies of at least 300 ECTS.
- A student with a Master’s degree 120 ECTS obtained with honors or equivalent in a different field may be granted access after validating up to 60 ECTS of graduate coursework in economics or equivalent.
- Documentation showing proficiency in English
- Letter of support from a faculty member to act as supervisor.
- Research proposal
- Proposal for supervisory panel
- Proposal for a research training programme
The confirmation procedure is a mandatory intermediate step in the doctoral process with the purpose to assure adequate progress towards the thesis defense in order to meet the statutory objectives in terms of time and quality. The confirmation serves several objectives.
First, the confirmation is the critical stage where the candidate has to convince his/her supervisory panel about the prospects of terminating the thesis as initiated. In passing the confirmation, candidate gets an endorsement from the supervisory panel to continue the research along the undertaken direction until the private defense (at least one year later).
Second, the confirmation is the occasion for the supervisory panel to more precisely fix objectives and limitations for the candidate and the project, given the intermediate results from the 1-2 years of research. These guidelines are important to focus the final work at fruitful areas for scientific contributions, opportunities for publication and/or data availability.
Third, the progress and status at the confirmation allows the supervisory panel to identify and isolate potential barriers for the candidate in the realization of the project. These barriers could be both linked to material resources (access to financial resources, tools and proprietary data) and human resources (personal capacity of the candidate to master parts of the methodology, supervisory capacity, international connections, etc). The guidelines from the confirmation should address any potential barriers identified as to ensure that the objectives can be achieved in due time with highest quality.
When the supervisory panel considers that the candidate’s work and doctoral research training have been satisfactorily completed, it proposes a composition of a doctoral jury. Usually, the private defense can be fixed earliest one year after the passed confirmation.