The Department of Economics and CEBI is pleased to announce openings of a fully-funded Ph D scholarship as part of the research project “The Role of Preferences and Beliefs in Shaping Physician Careers”. This project is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.
You will be involved in research centered at the high-skilled labor market for physicians. Health care sectors across the world are challenged by physician shortages to match increasing demands for care. Failure to recruit and retain a diverse group of physicians in health care can be catastrophic for public health and individual patients. It can further increase inequality in access to health care, extend waiting lists unnecessarily, and keep talents of different genders and backgrounds from pursuing a medical research career within the profession. Our hypothesis is that individual physicians’ preferences, circumstances, and beliefs determine career aspirations, their realized career and family outcomes. We ask two overarching questions: 1) How are physician beliefs about career and family trade-offs shaped over the life-cycle? 2) How do preferences, circumstances and beliefs impact aspirations and realized outcomes? Using survey experiments linked at the individual level to data from administrative sources, including a randomized lottery that determines physicians’ first jobs, we will disentangle how different mechanisms causally shape physician preferences, beliefs and careers.
Join the project and collaborate with Torben Heien Nielsen (Professor at the Department of Economics) and Frederik Plesner Lyngse (Assistant Professor of Health Economics at the Department of Public Health). Successful candidates will not only work closely with senior researchers but also have the chance to pursue independent research. We therefore invite you to include a description of a potential independent research project in your application. Your description should articulate and justify a research question, as well as discuss data sources and empirical designs to address it.
2/3 of the scholarship is funded by the specific project “The Role of Preferences and Beliefs in Shaping Physician Careers”. The remaining 1/3 is funded by CEBI.
As a Ph D Fellow you will be affiliated with Center for Economic Behavior and inequality, CEBI, a center of Excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. The main goal of CEBI is to provide cutting-edge empirical research on the role of behavior in generating inequality and its underlying sources. CEBI combines several fields and methods: Public Economics, Labor Economics, Health Economics, Behavioral Economics, Household Finance, Political Economics, Microeconometrics, Experimental and Survey Methods and Structural Modelling. The current group includes 14 senior researchers, 11 junior researchers, 12 Ph D students, 7 research assistants and 7 international researchers from New York University, Pompeu Fabra University, Princeton University and University of Zürich. For further information about CEBI see: www.econ.ku.dk/cebi.
The position starting date is 1 September 2025.
Introduction
The Ph D programme provides Ph D students with strong research training which opens up a window of opportunity to a variety of careers within the private and public sectors. The programme includes the drafting of a Ph D thesis, active participation in research networks, Ph D courses, teaching, and other forms of knowledge dissemination. The Ph D programme can be undertaken as a three-year full-time study within the framework of the 5+3 study programme, a four-year full-time study programme within the framework of the 4+4 study programme, or a five-year full-time study programme within the framework of the 3+5 study programme.
Duties and Responsibilities
Further information about the Ph D study programme is available on the website of Copenhagen Graduate School of Social Sciences: https://samf.ku.dk/phd-skolen/english/.
Under "Legal basis" on the website you will find information about the rules and guidelines for the Ph D programme and the Danish Ministerial Order on the Ph D programme at the Universities.
Information about the Ph D study programme is also available on the Ph D website of the Department of Economics. Please see: https://www.economics.ku.dk/phd/.
Applicants should familiarise themselves with the research strategy and the ongoing research at the department before submitting their application. Further information can be found here: https://www.economics.ku.dk/department/reportsplans/Econ_Strategy_2019-2022.pdf.

Scholarship in the 5+3, the 4+4 or the 3+5 Ph D study programme
The 5+3 Ph D study programme
To be eligible for a scholarship in the 5+3 Ph D study programme, the applicant must have completed a two-year MSc degree programme or have earned 120 ECTS credits at an equivalent academic level before starting employment. Applicants should check the study programmes for more detailed descriptions of the entry requirements. Ph D students are paid a salary in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). The Ph D student has a work obligation of up to 840 hours over the 3 year period of time without additional pay. The work obligation can include teaching, for instance.

The 4+4 Ph D study programme
Students who have completed a BSc plus 60 ECTS of an MSc degree programme would enrol as Ph D students simultaneously with their enrolment in the MSc degree programme. Applicants should check the study programmes for more detailed descriptions of the entry requirements. Until an MSc degree is obtained, the grant is paid partly in the form of up to 48 state education grant portions (in Danish: SU-klip). More specifically the Ph D student will be paid two grant portions per month plus salary for work (teaching, presentations etc.) which totals a workload of at least 280 hours. Payment and conditions of employment are carried out in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). Upon completion of the MSc degree programme, the student is transferred to the salary-earning part of the Ph D studies. The Ph D student is expected to seek funding for fieldwork as this is not included in the scholarship.
The 3+5 Ph D study programme
Students who have completed a BSc would enrol as Ph D students simultaneously with their enrolment in the MSc degree programme. Applicants should check the study programmes for more detailed descriptions of the entry requirements. Until an MSc degree is obtained, the grant is paid partly in the form of up to 48 state education grant portions (in Danish: SU-klip). More specifically the Ph D student will be paid one grant portion per month during the first two years, and two grant portions per month during the last year. The student will also receive salary for work (teaching, presentations etc.) which totals a workload of at least 280 hours. Payment and conditions of employment are carried out in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). Upon completion of the MSc degree, the student is transferred to the salary-earning part of the Ph D studies.
The qualifications of applicants with non-Danish Master’s degrees will be assessed to ascertain whether they correspond to the Danish level. For further information, please refer to the website of the Ministry of Education and Research: https://ufm.dk/en/education/admission-and-guidance.
How to apply
Submit a complete application at our online portal. Click on the “Apply now” icon at the bottom of the page to apply. The format of the documents must be Adobe PDF or Word and should include the following documents:

• Cover letter (detailing your motivation and background for applying with the specific Ph D project)
• CV
• Project description preferably within Health Economics or Labor Economics (recommended no more than 6,000 characters not including bibliography)
• Diploma and transcripts of records (BSc and MSc)
• Other information for consideration, e.g., list of publications, documentation of English language qualifications (if any).

Application process
On the website of Copenhagen Graduate School of Social Sciences, you will find information about the application process, and enclosures to include with your electronic application: https://samf.ku.dk/phd-skolen/english/applicants/application/current_advertisement/.
The recruitment process
Further information on the recruitment process at University of Copenhagen can be found here: https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/.
The following criteria are used when shortlisting candidates for assessment:
1. Research qualifications as reflected in the project proposal.
2. Quality and feasibility of the project.
3. Qualifications and knowledge in relevant Economics disciplines within macroeconomics, microeconomics and econometrics. Applicants should check the Economics Ph D study programme for a more detailed description of this requirement.
4. Performance (grades obtained) in graduate and post-graduate studies.
Selected applicants are notified of the composition of the assessment committee, and each applicant can comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.
Please note that normally there is strong competition for these scholarships, and only a few can be awarded each term.
Enrolment
In order to be awarded a Ph D scholarship, the applicant has to enroll as a Ph D student at the Faculty of Social Sciences, cf. the rules of the Danish Ministerial order No 1039 of 27 August 2013.
An equal opportunity workplace
The University of Copenhagen is committed in its pursuit of academic excellence to equality of opportunity and to creating an inclusive working environment and therefore encourages all qualified candidates to apply, regardless of personal background, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, ethnicity etc. For more on the diverse working place environment at the University and the University’s participation in the HRS4R HR Excellence in Research, please see: https://employment.ku.dk/working-at-ucph/eu-charter-for-researchers/.
International applicant?
The University of Copenhagen offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including support before and during your relocation and career counselling to expat partners. Please find more information about these services as well as information on entering and working in Denmark here: https://ism.ku.dk/.
Contact information
Information about the recruitment process is available from HR, e-mail: hrsc@hrsc.ku.dk. Please refer to ID number: 211-2001/24-2H #1.
Additional information about the position can be obtained from Professor Torben Heien Nielsen, e-mail: thn@econ.ku.dk.
The closing date for applications is 15 January 2025 at 23:59 CET.
Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.

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