In France, the PhD is issued by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through a specific internal structure, the “Doctoral School”. There are in total 270 doctoral schools in France, each of them covering various connected disciplines in the different HEIs and lying at the crossroad between education structures and research laboratories. Doctoral schools supervise the admission of students in the doctoral path and their training, and they are also responsible for issuing doctoral contracts and funding opportunities.

In Montpellier, the EDEG doctoral school, hosted at the University of Montpellier, focuses on economy and management.

Find here the list of the doctoral schools in France.

The most common contract to fund your PhD is the “doctoral contract”, which is a 3-year contract financed by the university.

Doctoral contracts are awarded to successful PhD candidates who applied specifically on research topics proposed by researchers of the university laboratories and advertised by the Doctoral School.

A doctoral contract can be exclusively dedicated to research, but it can also include specific amendments allowing PhD students to dedicate 5/6 of their time to research, and 1/6 to other activities, including teaching, scientific valorisation or advising to third-party institutions. They ensure a salary of 1769 EUR/month gross for research activities, including social benefits and health insurance, and further remuneration depending on the additional activities performed by the students.

Doctoral contracts are by far the most common contract for a PhD in universities. In Montpellier, 30% of all PhD students in management benefit from such contracts.

PhD candidates who must extend the duration of their PhD beyond 3 years can be beneficiaries of ATER contracts (ATER stands for “Attaché Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche”), which are employment contracts provided by the university.

ATER contracts can only concern PhD candidates close to the completion of their thesis – the maximum duration of the contract is 2 years. These candidates must then provide additional time to teaching, reaching 128 hours of lectures or 288 hours of seminars per year, for a remuneration slightly higher than with a doctoral contract. 

Another possibility for the PhD student is to benefit from the collaboration between a company and the university. “CIFRE” contracts consists in an agreement between a PhD student, a company and the university (CIFRE stands for “Convention Industrielle de Formation par la Recherche”). In that case, the PhD student is employed by the company – either on a permanent basis, or for 3 years (duration of a CIFRE contract) – and receives a salary of 1957 EUR/month gross minimum, including social benefits and health insurance.

As beneficiaries of a CIFRE contract, PhD students spend half of their time by the company doing research, and the other half by the university where they receive doctoral training. The supervision of the PhD is ensured by an academic supervisor at the university and a tutor in the company.

The CIFRE initiative is co-financed at 50% by the French Ministry of Research and concerns large companies as well as small businesses, thus supporting a stronger cooperation of the industry with academia. Annually, more than 1400 CIFRE contracts are awarded.

At the University of Montpellier, approximately 5% of our PhD students benefit for CIFRE contracts.

A similar opportunity is represented by the European Industrial Doctorate supported by the European Commission through a specific research programme, the Marie Sklodowska Curie actions. In this case, the academic institution and the company should be located in different European countries.

This type of contract is however rather rare in management sciences.

Finally, other funding opportunities include stipends or scholarships awarded by a large variety of organisms, including the laboratories themselves, the region, or private institutions. It can consist in employment contracts at the labs, or even doctoral contracts awarded by specific institutes.

For example in Montpellier, #DigitAg (Digital Agriculture Convergence Lab), a public-private collaborative institution focused on digital agriculture, provides additional funding for PhD students doing their research in this particular field. One of our PhD student at Montpellier benefits from this opportunity; learn from her what it is about

In Montpellier, LabEx Entreprendre also provides specific funding for PhDs focusing on the question of entrepreneurship and sustainability.

Another option to do your doctoral studies could be a PhD scholarship. There are multiple forms of scholarships with different requirements and conditions. Some offer additional funds for books, other offer financing for scientific and technical studies or you get a full scholarship which includes living costs. Here you can find many scholarships offered in Germany. If an PhD student receives a scholarship it needs to be considered that there usually are strong regulations relating to part-time jobs. 

After finding the right option for you on how to do the PhD there are some legal requirements. In general, one needs an advanced university degree like a Master degree or an equivalent university degree with a final grade of “good”. Sometimes other evidence like personal assessment by a professor or above-average seminar grades may also be sufficient. This needs to be discussed with each individual university.