Pr. Guido Hülsmann Faculté de Droit, d'Économie et de Gestion Université d'Angers

Doctoral Studies in Economics
at the University of Angers

Études doctorales en sciences économiques à l'Université d'Angers

General Procedure

For admission as a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Angers you need to have five years of training and a master's degree in economics from an accredited university.

Write to our Doctoral School to obtain an application form (available only from mid-June to early October.) Fill out and submit the form before the deadline, along with your diploma, your research proposal, and other documents. Your application will be reviewed by a committee that convenes each year from about mid-September to the end of October.

Upon admission you will sign up and pay the tuition fee.

Once signed up, you start right away working on your research project. There is few specific coursework to do. There are a few mandatory classes dealing with matters of general interest such as research techniques. These classes are not graded; their total volume is about 20 hours per year.

The general time frame to complete your research and write a dissertation is three years. You need to sign up and pay the fee for each year individually. Authorisation for an additional fourth or fifth year is usually granted, provided you make demonstrable progress in your work.

Residence and Immigration Questions

Our communication would be based essentially on email correspondence. We would meet two or three times a year in person to give you opportunity to present and discuss your work with me and other scholars. There is no obligation for you to be a resident of Angers.

If you choose to live in Angers, there are no special problems pertaining to visa or immigration if you are a citizen of a European Union member country. If you are a citizen of other countries please check the administrative procedures for entering France as a doctoral student. Our Doctoral School and our Office for International Relations might be able to assist you.

Financial Questions

In your application you have to specify how you intend to finance your doctoral studies.

Tuition fees at the University of Angers are right now in the order of 350 euros per year.

Mandatory health insurance : Irrespective of where you reside, you are liable to have health insurance within the European Union. If you do not have EU health coverage, you can sign up for student health insurance at our doctoral school. This is another 200 euros per year and can be paid along with the tuition fees.

Living expenses in Angers: with 1000 euros per month (including rent) you will get along.

I will provide support in obtaining scholarships.

Dissertation and Defence: Exclusive Research Direction

If you work under my exclusive direction (if you have no other research director), the dissertation must be submitted in French. You are free to write it in English and to translate it or have it translated. In any case, your work must take account of the French literature in your field of study.

The defence of doctoral dissertations takes place before a committee of five to six professors, two of whom (including myself) come from the University of Angers and the rest from other French or foreign universities or research institutions.

The defence can take place in French and English. You may answer questions in English, but you need to be able to understand questions asked in French. In practice this means that you need to have good working knowledge of spoken French by the end of your studies.

Dissertation and Defence: Co-Directorship

You can also work with me and a second research director from a university within the European Union. In this case, a convention between the two universities must be signed (usually a formality, but it takes a few weeks).

If the co-director comes from a university of a non-French speaking country within the European Union, the dissertation can be submitted either in French or in English or in the language of that other country (provided I can read it). In this case, too, however, your work must take account of the French literature in your field of study.

The defence of co-directed doctoral dissertations takes place before a committee of five to six professors, including the two co-directors and scholars from other French or foreign universities or research institutions.

The defence can take place in French or English or the language in which the dissertation is written. There is in this case no obligation to be able to communicate in French.

Basic Formal Requirements for Your Research

I would expect you to produce a well-structured dissertation of some 200-300 pages. No « three essays on so and so ». You will write one or two surveys on the literature dealing with the main thesis of your dissertation; this can be part of the dissertation or be published separately. It is not necessary for the dissertation to include exercises in modelling, econometric studies, etc. However, it is necessary to argue concisely, thoroughly, and rigorously, based on state-of-the-art theory and empirical evidence.

Apart from writing the dissertation, you should give one or two presentations per year at our faculty seminar in Angers; and of course you should present parts of your work at other professional meetings.

Forthcoming Doctoral Dissertations

At present I am supervising the following research projects :