Doctoral Programme in Political and Social Sciences

Selection Process and Schedule

• 1 November: Application procedure opens.
• 31 January: Deadline for applications and references. Applications are screened for completeness by Academic Service. Professors of the department start to check the application files and identify the most promising ones. Funding authorities start assessing the candidates' eligibility for funding.
• Early March: National pre-selection committees composed of funding authorities, EUI faculty, and representatives of PhD students shortlist candidates for interviews.
• Late March: Invitations for interviews for shortlisted candidates are sent by e-mail. Candidates who are not shortlisted are also informed by e-mail.
• 31 March - 4 April: Shortlisted candidates are interviewed by the Departmental panels.
• Mid-April: EUI’s ‘Entrance Board’ decides which applicants will be offered admission on the basis of the Department’s proposals. Candidates are informed of the admission results by e-mail.
• May to July: Formal admission letters are sent by e-mail. Practical information for selected candidates is posted on the Academic Service's web pages. Reserve candidates may be contacted during this period if selected candidates withdraw.
• End of August: Registration of new researchers.
• 1 September: Academic Year begins.

See also: Interviews and Language Tests

Selection criteria

• Academic record: National pre-selection committees have the expertise to interpret academic grades, degrees, and rankings of departments and universities and make sure that comparable standards are used to assess all applicants. Candidates are expected to have sufficient background in theory and research methodology relevant to their discipline and research project.
• Quality of the research proposal: The originality and feasibility of a PhD proposal play a crucial role both in the initial pre-selection by the EUI Professors and in the interviews in the Departments of History, Law and Political and Social Sciences. Applicants for the Economics Department provide a short research statement rather than a full research proposal.
• Potential supervision: The department carefully examines whether it can provide suitable supervision for the candidate, taking into account the profile of the department and distribution of supervision among its academic staff for the whole of the period concerned.
• Language abilities: All candidates must have a good knowledge of English. The expected minimum level of English language proficiency is C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).

Complete information on the selection procedure is available in the Academic Rules and Regulations for the EUI Doctoral Programme.