PhD Candidate in Finance at Tilburg University CentER Graduate School of Business

Your position  

As a PhD candidate in Finance, you can make a significant impact on Tilburg University and future generations. You will be trained to acquire state-of-the-art knowledge and skills that are indispensable to conduct academic research. As you approach the completion of your training, you will become responsible for teaching assistant duties. Throughout your employment as a PhD candidate, you will collaborate with the Faculty at the Finance department and with other PhD students.

You will be enrolled as a PhD candidate in the world-class PhD program of CentER Graduate School of Business where you will receive extensive training in theory and methods by taking several PhD-level courses. The PhD program consists of two phases. In the first phase, lasting 1.5 years, you will receive extensive graduate-level training in theory and methods by taking several PhD-level courses. The courseload amounts to 36 ECTS, which is the equivalent for 6 full courses. The course program is composed by your supervisor and PhD program coordinator.  
The coursework in this first phase covers microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics as well as field courses in corporate finance, asset pricing, banking, behavioral finance, and advanced topics in finance. CentER’s graduate school offers a broad choice of advanced courses in economics, including behavioral and experimental, (financial) econometrics, accounting, and strategy. The PhD training phase is meant to provide PhD candidates with a broad array of theoretical and econometric tools that are necessary to successfully develop original scholarly research at the frontiers of financial economics. All courses are taught in English.

In the second phase, lasting about 2.5 years, you will conduct dissertation research.  A PhD dissertation at CentER requires the design and execution of 3 studies. The execution of the research work itself typically involves the conceptualization of the research questions and ideas, data collection, qualitative and/or quantitative analysis of the data, and writing and presenting of academic papers. The aim is to publish about those projects in high-quality academic journals. 

While you conduct your dissertation research, you will primarily work on the development, implementation and publication of research projects. Two advisors from the Finance Research group will be assigned to you and will provide advice and supervision of your PhD research. 
More broadly,  you will collaborate extensively with the members of the Finance department research group, a high-quality and high-impact research group with more than 20 active researchers at the assistant, associate or full professor level, and about 10 PhD students. You will be able to benefit from the department’s strong research focus and its numerous resources (e.g., databases, research seminars with external speakers, brown-bag presentation of faculty and students’ research, topic-focused reading groups, career planning, skills-enhancement workshops, international conferences, contacts with practitioners, etc.).

As part of the CentER’s graduate school, you will also benefit from the excellent research and work environment that TISEM offers, with a community of graduate students from many countries, access to a wide array of research databases, excellent facilities to conduct experiments, state-of-the-art library, a programming group, and support for grant applications. There is also a travel budget for attending PhD level courses outside of CentER, work visits and conferences. The training can be adapted to the previous educational achievements of the PhD candidate by mutual agreement with the supervisors. 

Upon successful completion of your courses and your research work, as demonstrated by a submitted and approved PhD dissertation and the subsequent defense, you will be awarded a doctoral degree by Tilburg University.

80% of the position’s time will be dedicated to the completion of your PhD research, and 20% to the acquisition of academic skills through teaching courses and supervising master/bachelor theses within the department.

Requirements

Your profile 
1)    An academic Master’s or MPhil/Research Master’s degree in business studies, economics, econometrics, operations research or another relevant field that is deemed an equivalent to the previous education profile.
2)    Completed the previous degree with an excellent GPA (top 10% of class as guideline)
3)    Proficiency in English to be proven by means of an IELTS score of at least 7.0, with no sub scores below 6.5, a TOEFL score of at least 100 (internet based) or 600 (paper based), a Cambridge CAE (at least B) or a Cambridge CPE. Exemptions can be provided upon request to native English speakers or to candidates who have obtained their bachelor’s and master’s degree in English in Europe, Canada, USA, Australia, or New Zealand.
4)    A solid quantitative background, to be proven in one of the following ways:

1. candidates with a MSc or MPhil degree from a Research University in the European Union need to have at least 24 ECTS credits in quantitative and research methods courses during their BSc and/or MSc or MPhil programs. If this is not the case, but you would still like to be considered for admission, you are welcome to hand in a GRE or GMAT test score to show your quantitative competences.
2. candidates with a MSc or MPhil degree from a university outside the European Union: please provide a recent GRE or GMAT test score.

Conditions of employment

Our offer

Tilburg University offers excellent benefits in a pleasant working environment. Our offer includes:
•    A position based on 1,0 fte (40 hours per week) •    A salary of €2872 gross per month in the first year, up to €3670 gross per month in the fourth year for full-time employment, based on UFO profile Promovendus and salary scale P. 
•    This is a vacancy for a temporary position in accordance with Article 2.3 paragraph 8 under b of the CLA DU. You will initially receive a temporary contract for the duration of 18 months to assess your suitability. The evaluation will take place after about 14 months. If suitable, this contract will be followed by a new fixed-term contract of 30 months. (N.B. program is 4 years, fulltime).
•    Vacation pay of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. 
•    Over 8 weeks of vacation leave. 
•    The opportunity to work partly on campus and partly from home with a home office allowance of €2 per day.
•    Reimbursement for sustainable commuting: walking, cycling and public transportation. 
•    A monthly internet fee of €25.
•    An Options Model in which you exchange benefits for things such as additional leave, more pension, a bicycle or personal training at our Sports Center. 
•    A moving allowance (subject to conditions). 
•    Employees from outside the Netherlands may be eligible for the 30/20/10% tax facility.
•    A pension with ABP; the most sustainable Dutch pension fund.
•    Training in personal development, career development, leadership, education, and research or a language course at our Language Center. 
•    A work culture in which we embrace differences, everyone is welcome and given equal opportunities. 
•    A vibrant campus in green surroundings that is easily accessible by public transport. 

For more information, see our website and the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. 

Employer

About Tilburg University

Tilburg University is an academic, inclusive, and engaged community. Together with nearly 3,000 employees, we are committed to broad prosperity, sustainably, and inclusion. For current and future generations. We develop and share knowledge for the requirements of people and our society. This is how we contribute to solving complex social issues and help society move forward.

We educate our 19,500 students of 110 nationalities to become responsible leaders with knowledge, skills, and character. With our education and research for broad prosperity, we exceedingly focus on themes such as mental and preventive care, an inclusive labor market, the energy transition, and digitalization.

Department

About TiSEM

Tilburg School of Economics and Management (TiSEM) is one of Europe’s leading centers for research in business and economics, with research rankings consistently among’s Europe’s top 10 across various business domain. In addition to the strong research focus and collegial research climate, it offers a wide variety of educational programs at the undergraduate and graduate level, with about 7,000 students enrolled. The School is well-connected to both policy makers and industry in the region and internationally, providing ample opportunities for creating impact with research.
Tilburg School of Economics and Management