Doctoral Program

About the Doctorate in management sciences

Director: Nicolas Aubert
Administrative Managers:

- IAE Aix: Fabienne Paul, fabienne.paul@iae-aix.com

- Faculty of economics and management: Catherine Aviles, catherine.aviles@univ-amu.fr

- Public Management and Local Governance Institute:  Lely TAN(coorpération internationale et recherche) , lely.tan@univ-amu.fr 

The objective of the doctoral program is to help students delivering a high-level thesis that meets the highest international standards of research. After completing a research-based master, the admission in the doctoral program is made upon a research project. This research project has to be supported by a professor (potential thesis supervisor) and approved by Aix-Marseille Université doctoral school of economics and management (ED 372). In some cases, the master recherche can be replaced by an equivalent foreign diploma or by significant past experience conducting research.

The program includes doctoral seminars organized by CERGAM and other research centers of the doctoral school. These seminars allow students to acquire the most advanced research techniques and are mandatory during the first two years of studies. It includes also work-in-progress and publication workshops to confront students’ research with different perspectives, get feedback from professors and other doctoral students, and more generally to formalize their research work.  These workshops and seminars are privileged opportunities to improve research and prepare future presentations at conferences and symposiums.

Apart from seminars and workshops, students can participate to the EDAMBA Summer School (European Doctoral Association in Management and Business Administration) and to the CEFAG (European Center for Advanced Training in Management).

As from the second year, doctoral students are encouraged to attend at least one annual conference and to publish one working paper in the CERGAM research book. For conferences and symposiums, students receive financial support when the submitted paper is accepted after peer reviewing. This financial support covers travel cost and registration fees. After the first year, students are also helped financially for research stays in foreign institutions (Europe, USA, Australia, Canada).

Finally, at the end of the studies, a pre-dissertation defense in front of two or three professors is organized to make final improvements and subsequently make a high-quality thesis defense after three years of research.