General considerations on the recruitment of doctoral students


Implementation  Reviews


Any PhD proposal subject to enrollment in ED (irrespective of whether or not they are the subject of an application to the funding competition) must mandatorily be submitted on this website, via the page https://www.edpif.org/fr/recrutement/prop.php (in French). On this page the submission link is displayed only for affiliated and authentified PhD supervisors.


The recruitment of doctoral students occurs through two separate procedures:

  1. The first procedure, culminating in a competition, ranks the candidates who request funding under a doctoral contract through the ED. ( Calendar of the competition)
  2. The second procedure authorizes the enrollment of those candidates receiving other modes of funding.

To ensure homogeneity of the enrollment criteria, the two procedures both use an online application, and the same files are requested (CV, academic results, assessments on internships, thesis subject and opinion of the thesis director, possible letters of recommendation).

Candidates with other funding are invited to submit their applications by following the schedule of the funding competition procedure as much as possible.

The completed application file is considered at a minimum by the Board of the ED, and by the Competition Office that awards contracts for the ED if the schedule permits. The Board of the ED may seek external advice from experts in the field or someone responsible for the master’s. If the file is insufficient, the Board of the ED may refuse enrollment of the applicant. To avoid disappointment, teams are invited to submit to the ED the thesis project and the applicant's file before presenting a candidate a request for an offer of funding for the thesis.

The ED shall ensure that each doctoral student has a minimum of funding consistent with the thesis charter for the establishment of enrollment. A lesser amount should be completed by the team or the host laboratory. When filing their applications, students who are not candidates for a doctoral contract awarded by the ED must include with their application a financing plan signed by the thesis director and the laboratory director.