Co-tutelle Call 2024

The EUTOPIA PhD co-tutelle program supports high-quality PhD projects in all research areas co-supervised by academics of the EUTOPIA member universities. It offers PhD fellowships for 3 to 4 years,depending on the length of doctoral studies in the partner universities. It is expected to lead to high-quality research projects with global impact, providing exciting research opportunities for PhD or doctoral candidates.

They shall take full advantage of the vibrant scientific environment of the EUTOPIA alliance (the following links give access the research pages of the seven EUTOPIA partner universities active inthe 2024 program):

• Babes-Bolyai University (UBB)
• Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
• Ca’Foscari University of Venice (UNIVE)
• CY Cergy Paris Université (CY)
• Technische Universität Dresden (TUD)
• NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA)
• Pompeu Fabra University-Barcelona (UPF)
• The University of Warwick (UW)

The participating EUTOPIA universities will jointly operate the call, but not every university will be a HOME (meaning, funding) university. They can still be HOST (meaning secondary) partners—the degree of overall reciprocity will be considered when the universities evaluate the projects. This document describes the application procedure and requirements, and the evaluation process and gives details about the funding conditions, operational modalities and implementation of the PhD fellowships. Bilateral cotutelle agreements will be made between the partner universities. Successful candidates will enter into an agreement governing the joint supervision of their PhD and obtain funding for the entire duration of their PhD according to the national legal frameworks – in most cases, from a single employer for the length of the PhD. An example of such an agreement can be provided upon request.

The present call offers PhD fellowships for certain Home/Host configurations, but all listed universities can be Hosts.

A maximum of 17 PhD fellowships are allocated by home institution:
 

Home institution	UBB	VUB	UNIVE	CY	TUD	UL	NOVA	UPF	UW
Number of positions offered as HOME	2	0	5	4	0	0	4	0	5

The fellowships will start between October 2024 and January 2025.

 

Jointly operated application and selection process

Application

Applications are to be submitted by the prospective supervisors of the project.

The deadline for submission of applications to the present call is 20 May 2024, 13:00 (Central European Time / CET). The same project can only be submitted once, regardless of the Home or host institution. Applications submitted after the deadline will not be considered.

Submissions should include:

• Completed application form
• Detailed description of the research project
• Academic CVs of both co-supervisors and CV of the PhD candidate(s)
• Letter of motivation from the PhD candidate(s)
• Letters/emails of support from the Head of School/Department/Research Center/DoctoralSchool/Academic Unit, depending on each university (a support letter from the Head of department is compulsory at the University of Warwick)
• A scanned copy of the PhD candidate’s Master’s degree certificate and academic transcript (or highest degree obtained + Master’s degree underway). Please note that pre-master candidates may not accepted in some universities.

Applications where the PhD candidate has not yet been identified may be considered but strong priority in the selection will be given to complete projects having already identified a PhD candidate or a short list of PhD candidates. Applicants must explain their motivation for the choice of the proposed candidate(s) and indicate their ranking of the potential candidates if more than one has been identified.

To be eligible, submissions must be made via the online application platform: www.eutopia.smapply.io

Application materials will be made available on the platform.

The application platform opens 5th of March and closes 20th of May

Evaluation and selection

Proposals will be assessed against the following criteria:

Quality of the proposed research project:

• relevance to the current topic of the scientific fields
• topicality and originality
• suitable methods, and feasibility

Qualifications of the researchers:

• track record of the co-supervisors
• quality of preselected candidate(s)

Added value of the cotutelle

• Individual pertinence of each partner
• Complementarities and synergies made possible through this cotutelle

Institutional pertinence of the proposal

• Pertinence in regard to the priorities of the research team
• Relevance to strategic interests of the university
• Degree of reciprocity between the universities

The proposals will go through a peer review process (for parts 1 to 3) and be submitted to a joint panel including all participating institutions for final decisions: each university will provide an evaluation for each project that is associated with (whether they be Home or Host). The evaluation of the projects will include an evaluation by university leadership (VP/rectors of research) to evaluate the alignment of the projects with the institutional priorities and whether there is a form of reciprocity (this relates to the “effort” made by each partner in the Alliance – applicants are not expected to address this issue).

In the case of applications where a PhD candidate has not been identified yet, funding decisions will beconditional on the validation of suitable candidate(s), in accordance with the eligibility criteria (see parts 3and 4).

Application results are expected to be released on 28th June 2024.

For more information, download the call's guidelines.