In order to be admitted to the PhD programme, you must have funding and a master's degree with good grades. There are several ways to procure funding of your PhD project and the two most common are described in more detail below (i. Funding).
All candidates and supervisors must familiarize themselves with the Supplementary Regulations at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences to the Regulations for the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at the University of Oslo. The relevant paragraphs are emphasized in the sections below.
Admission to the PhD programme at the MN Faculty takes place continuously throughout the year. The PhD candidate/supervisor must submit the application for admission to the PhD programme to the department within the first two months of the PhD employment contract. The initial assessment of the application is performed at your department and formally approved by the Faculty.
i. Funding
You can either
- apply for a PhD research fellow position (stipendiat)
OR
- apply for external funding
PhD research fellowships (stipendiat)
All PhD research fellowships, independently of subjects, fields, projects or units, are advertised at the University webpages. As a PhD research fellow (stipendiat), you are an employee of the University of Oslo and have the same rights and benefits as other employees.
Vacancy listings
External funding
As an externally funded PhD candidate, you must yourself procure funding of both salary, equivalent of a regular PhD candidate salary covering three years full-time studies, and research funds (when required for the project). All PhD candidates must be affiliated with a research community at our Faculty. You either secure funding first and then contact a potential supervisor or procure funding in collaboration with a potential supervisor.
The project funding may for example come from:
- a position at a college or another university
- a position at another scientific institution with time to do your own research
- a position at an external enterprise or organisation
External funding portals
- JobbNorge
- EURAXESS
- Public Sector PhD Scheme (Research Council of Norway)
- Industrial PhD Scheme (Research Council of Norway)
ii. The PhD candidate's guide to the application form
Below you find instructions on how to fill in the application form for admission to the PhD programme at the MN Faculty. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the University's and the Faculty's regulations for the PhD degree. The regulations are referred to at particular relevant places.
Admission requirements
The following criteria apply to admission to the PhD programme at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences:
Applicants with completed degrees from the following countries must provide original diplomas of Bachelor's and Master's degrees supplemented with transcripts:
Cameroon, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Republic of the Philippines, USA.
The qualification documents must be sent directly from the educational institution to the Faculty administration.
Paper copies
The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
PhD office
PO Box 1032 Blindern
NO-0315 Oslo
Norway
Electronic documents
phd-godkjenning@mn.uio.no
Explanation to the application process
The application for admission to the MN PhD programme is digital using Nettskjema. You may start the application and save your progress as you go along. We recommend you to familiarize yourself with the explanation to the the application below to get an overview of the information and attachments your need to require.
When you submit your application you will receive a confirmation e-mail with copies of your information and all attachments. A copy will also be sent to the PhD adviser at department/unit you are affiliated with. You do not have to perform any more actions and will be contacted if additional information is required.
Your application will be evaluated by the PhD council and the head of the department before sent to the Faculty for final approval, after which you will receive a letter of admission. The confirmation letter functions as your agreement with the Faculty.
Contact your local PhD adviser for any further questions not answered below.
Externally employed PhD candidates
Externally employed PhD candidates must be registered in the UiO systems to get a FEIDE login name and password in order to access the application form.
Your local PhD adviser will submit the application for you. You need to provide the following information:
- First name
- Family name
- Norwegian ID number (11 digits) OR UiO employee number (8 digits)
- If you have neither, provide
- your date of birth (dd.mm.yyyy)
- passport number
- country of origin from passport
- If you have neither, provide
- Sex (female/male are the only options in the form)
- Private address
- Street name and number
- Postal code
- Town
- Mobile phone number (will provide access to UiO's password change service by SMS)
- Norwegian mobile phone number AND cititzenship
- OR
- Foreign mobile phone number (with country code) AND citizenship
- OR
- citizenship only (no mobile phone number)
- Declaration of consent. By submitting your information you agree to the following:
- I hereby confirm that I have read and understood the Rules for the Use of IT Services at the University of Oslo, and that I agree to abide by these rules. I understand that my personal information will be recorded in the personnel, admissions, and user administrative databases at the University of Oslo. I am aware of the limits and provision of data on my reserved personal space provided by opening this account.
You will be notified when you are registered and can access the application form.
When registered in the UiO system, we recommend you to spend some time on your UiO profile page as the UiO domain ranks very high in the Google search engine.
Explanations to the application form
1. Affiliation
- The department you are affiliated with at the MN Faculty
or
- The Natural History Museum
2. Personal information
Names
Your FULL name.
Home address, Postal code, Town, Country
Your living address in Norway.
- International candidates who do not yet have a Norwegian address must give their living address in their home country
E-mail address
The UiO e-mail address (will be the primary contact point from the Faculty).
Phone number
Voluntary but encouraged for cases where rapid clarification is needed. Will only be used in relation to administration of your PhD period.
3. Employment
If you are in doubt of where you are employed or how your PhD project is funded, contact your local PhD adviser or principal supervisor.
I am employed at
-
The department/unit
- PhD candidates who have a contract of employment with the one of the nine departments at the MN Faculty or the Natural History Museum.
-
A centre at the MN Faculty
- PhD candidates who have a contract of employment with one of the centres hosted by MN
-
A centre at UiO
- PhD candidates who have a contract of employment with one of the centres hosted by UiO
- Submit an agreement of cooperation with the external institution signed by the candidate, a representative from the external institution and the head of the department/unit
-
An external institution
- PhD candidates who have a contract of employment with an institution external of UiO
- Submit an agreement of cooperation with the external institution signed by the candidate, a representative from the external institution and the head of the department/unit
- Residence duty. PhD candidates must generally spend one man-year at the University of Oslo.
- Department of Mathematics: Externally employed PhD candidates conducting their PhD research project at the Dept. of Mathematics must in addition to the above mentioned agreement of cooperation submit an agreement of office space and supervision (.docx; only in Norwegian)
-
Stipend
- PhD candidates funded by international stipends must provide documentation of a granted stipend that secure funding for the whole PhD period
Finance source
IF you have several funding arrangements of your PhD project, make sure to state all.
Mandatory duties
Only PhD candidates with 4 year contracts are to have mandatory duties and it shall make out up 25 % of the PhD period. Consult the Faculty regulations § 5.3.4 Mandatory duties for details.
4. Educational background
Title of degree
Title of your highest academic degree.
Field of education
The discipline/subject you specialized in for your highest academic degree.
Educational institution
The educational institution at which you completed your highest academic degree.
Country of education
The country in which you completed your highest academic degree.
Semester
The semester your completed your highest academic degree.
- Spring semester: 1 January - 31 July
- Autumn semester: 1 August - 31 December
Examination year
The year you completed your highest academic degree.
Working title of your PhD thesis
The preliminary title of your PhD thesis.
Field of study for your PhD project
The discipline/subject you are specializing in.
5. The educational component
Consult § 8 The educational component in the MN Faculty supplementary PhD regulations on the objectives, content and scope of the educational component.
PhD candidates with affiliation to Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Doctoral Networks must have 5 credits constituting MNSES9100 – Science, Ethics and Society and upload a description of the MSCA courses as a special syllabus attachment.
Regular academic course
Regular academic/scientific courses given by UiO or other educational institutions. Research courses with final exams arranged partly or wholely by the MN Faculty/Natural History Museum may be accepted as ordinary courses.
- Compulsory course
- PhD level (9000) courses
- PhD courses in mathematics and natural sciences
- PhD courses in mathematics and natural sciences with an English course description
- Generic courses
Research course
Up to 10 credits may be used on national or international research courses or special syllabus. All research courses must be concluded by an exam or seminar at the department/unit no later than 6 months of attending the course.
- Upload a description of the course for the department's/unit's PhD council to evaluate the content of the course
Special syllabus
Up to 10 credits may be used on national or international research courses or special syllabus.
- The special syllabus must be describe in a separate form and uploaded to the application
6. Supervision
§ 7.2 Appointment of academic supervisors, § 7.3 The principal supervisor
Each PhD candidate shall have at least two supervisors who are actively involved throughout the candidate’s degree.
Principal supervisor
An internal principal supervisor is either
- permanently employed as associate professor or professor at the MN Faculty, the Faculty of Medicine, the Natural History Museum or the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS)
- a professor II position at the MN Faculty or Faculty of Medicine with an employment contract valid through the candidate's whole PhD project
An external principal supervisor is employed at one of UiO's centres or at an institution external of UiO.
- Provide his/her CV and publications list. The department's/unit's PhD council will evaluate the qualifications of the external supervisor and the robustness of the supervisor team in an application to the Faculty.
- Department of Biosciences: PhD candidates affiliated with the Dept. of Biosciences who apply for admission with an externally employed principal supervisor must attach an application to have an external principal supervisor completed by the principal supervisor.
- Department of Physics: PhD candidates affiliated with the Dept. of Biosciences who apply for admission with an externally employed principal supervisor must attach an application to have an external principal supervisor completed by the internal co-supervisor.
Co-supervisor(s)
- Must hold a PhD degree
- In the case of an external principal supervisor, at least one of the co-supervisors must fulfill the criteria stated above for an internal principal supervisor
7. Statements from the principal supervisor
Consult § 5.1.6.3 Principal supervisor's statement on the scope and content of the statement.
- The statements must be authored by the principal supervisor and sent to the candidate to be included in the relevant fields in the application form.
The principal supervisor's evaluation of the candidate's potential
- The supervisor’s evaluation of the applicant’s ability to complete the research assignment
Resources situation
- The funding of the project, travel expenses, residence abroad, laboratory facilities and similar
Possible professional associates or research network which the applicant will be in contact with
- Collaborators, if any, or research networks with which the applicant may be affiliated
The candidate has had the induction conversation with the principal supervisor?
- The induction conversation is important for calibrating your and your supervisor's expectations to each other, the project, working hours etc.
8. Confirmations
The supervisors must confirm that
- they have familiarised themselves with the University's and the Faculty's regulations and the guidelines
- they have obliged themselves to follow research ethical principles that prevail within the subject area
- they have obliged themselves to follow ethical guidelines for supervision relationships at UiO
- they support the outline of the project
- the candidate and supervisor team shall keep one another informed on an on-going basis about all matter of significance for carrying out the supervision (the PhD candidate confirms this by submitting the application)
The supervisor team's approval of the above mentioned declarations
- All supervisors must confirm that she/he support the application using her/his work e-mail
-
When you receive the confirmations from the supervisors, save them as pdf and upload them in the application form
-
Make sure that time, date and e-mail addresses are included
-
ONLY confirmations sent from an official work e-mail (ending with @uio.no or similar) will be approved by the Faculty
The candidate's approval of the above mentioned declarations
- The candidate approve the above mentioned declarations by submitting the application of admission to the PhD programme.
9. Mandatory attachments
The total size of all attachments MUST NOT exceed 25 MB. This is due to the restrictions on file size in e-mails which is decisive when the application will be sent by e-mail to the Faculty for evaluation.
To reduce the size of large pdf documents:
- Open the pdf document
- Save as other
- Reduced size pdf
- Save as other
Project description
Consult § 5.1.6.2 The project description for the scope and content of the project description. The project description (from 4 to 10 pages) must include a reference list. The project description will form the basis for the third semester reporting.
- Nomenclature: project-description-[surname]
- Make sure that all points in the project description template are addressed
Project description templates
Each ground unit has adapted the Faculty template to fit their own needs.
- Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics
- Department of Biosciences
- Department of Pharmacy
- Department of Physics
- Department of Geosciences
- Department of Informatics
- Department of Chemistry
- Department of Mathematics
- Department of Technology Systems
- Natural History Museum
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Nomenclature: cv-[surname]
- Upload your CV
Documentation of Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degrees issued by University of Oslo does not need to be documented. Applicants with non-UiO Bachelor's degree need to provide:
Bachelor's diploma
- Nomenclature: bachelor-diploma-[surname]
- Attach a copy of the diploma for your Bachelor's degree
- See special regulations for applicants with completed degrees from Cameroon, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Republic of the Philippines or USA
Bachelor's transcript
- Nomenclature: bachelor-transcript-[surname]
- Attach a copy of the transcript showing all courses included in your Bachelor's degree
- See special regulations for applicants with completed degrees from Cameroon, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Republic of the Philippines or USA
Documentation of Master's degree
Master's degrees issued by University of Oslo does not need to be documented. Applicants with non-UiO Master's degree need to provide:
Master's diploma
- Nomenclature: master-diploma-[surname]
- Attach a copy of the diploma for your Master's degree
- See special regulations for applicants with completed degrees from Cameroon, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Republic of the Philippines or USA
Master's transcript
- Nomenclature: master-transcript-[surname]
- Attach a copy of the transcript showing all courses included in your Master's degree
- See special regulations for applicants with completed degrees from Cameroon, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Republic of the Philippines or USA
List of publications
- If relevant, upload a list of your publication(s)
- Nomenclature: publications-[surname]
English language skills test
Consult § 5.1.4 English language skills for details on the pass requirements for the different approved tests and applicants who are exempt from the test.
- The test can not be older than two years from the start date of the PhD project
- Nomenclature: english-test-[surname]
Do you have courses already taken that you wish to include in the educational component of your PhD study?
- Upload the course description and transcripts/confirmations for courses already taken which you wish to include in the educational component for the PhD study
- The courses included in the educational component must not have been included in any previously obtained degrees or have formed the basis for admission to the PhD programme
Nomenclature
- [title-of-course]-description
AND
- [title-of-course]-transcripts
OR
- [title-of-course]-confirmation