PhD
Basic Information
If you wish to pursue a career in research and higher education, a doctorate can be prepared in 3 intensive years and consists of research work based on thesis writing, seminars and conferences.
Eligibility criteria: you must hold a national master's degree or another equivalent degree, following a training course or professional experience establishing your aptitude for research.
If this diploma condition is not met, the President of the University may waive it on the proposal of the Doctoral School Council, for students who have completed studies abroad at a level equivalent to the master's degree or for students benefiting from the validation of prior learning (article 613-5 of the Education Code).
In order to be a PhD student, you must have:
- A supervisor, or thesis director
- A laboratory
- A thesis subject
- Funding (depending on the doctoral school)
Funding
Several funding opportunities are available to PhD students:
- The Cifre programme (industrial agreements for training through research) subsidizes any company under French law that hires a PhD student as part of a research collaboration with a public laboratory. The student signs a CDI (open-ended contract) or a CDD (fixed-term contract) of 3 years and is remunerated.
- A doctoral contract in a public higher education institution or a research organization
- Local authorities, particularly the regions, provide grants comparable to doctoral contracts.
Applications for funding are made directly to doctoral schools – public institutions authorized to award doctorates – usually between January and July of the year preceding the start of the thesis. The first registrations take place in September.
Doctoral training
In order to broaden their transversal skills and to prepare for their future career, PhD students commit themselves in the doctoral charter to follow at least 100 hours of training over the first three years of the thesis. The Doctoral School of the Université Bretagne Loire, the doctoral colleges and the doctoral schools offer PhD students enrolled in the member institutions of the Université Bretagne Loire a diversified range of cross-disciplinary training courses.
The doctoral schools mainly offer disciplinary training. In Letters, Languages, Human and Social Sciences, they are the following schools:
- Doctoral school of Arts, Letters and Languages (ALL)
- Doctoral School of Law and Political Science (DSP)
- Doctoral School of Education, Languages, Interactions, Cognition, Clinical (ELICC)
- Doctoral School of Economics and Management Sciences (EDGE)
- Doctoral school of Societies, times, territories (STT)
Alliance Europa and Research
For PhD students or future PhD students interested in the research axes developed within the framework of Alliance Europa, here is the List of laboratories and doctoral schools (French content) to which they can be attached.
To know more about the research component of the Alliance Europa programme
Alliance Europa doctoral seminars
The aim of Alliance Europa doctoral workshops and seminars is to encourage doctoral students specialising in European issues to create bridges with other curriculums and work in a more interdisciplinary way.
- Workshops are meant to provide doctoral students with insight in terms of writing publications, using tools in particular, proposing communications, etc., in addition to the training already offered by their doctoral schools.
- Seminars are organized by and for PhD students (and master students) from the Loire region, with the support of Alliance Europa.
These seminars are held two to three times a year and involve pairs of PhD students from different disciplines who lead thematic workshops. One or more confirmed researchers then contribute and open the discussion.
A winterschool was organized in February 2020 and will probably be renewed in 2022. Finally, the organization of a summer university on European issues is planned for 2021.
