PhD's in Europe

Unpossible · 31-03-2017 12:14PM #1

My wife and I are interested in doing PhDs outside of Ireland, but within the EU, preferably in Germany or in a Nordic country. I have been searching for structured and research places, but I'm not sure what they are looking for in terms of Masters Degrees. Years ago in 2010 when I did my taught masters and first looked into doing a PhD abroad the websites I found specifically said that only research Masters were accepted (which was very disheartening as I got a 1st in my taught Masters). However now when I'm looking they only ever mention Masters and don't specify taught or research. Of course there are far more structured PhDs now as well and I'm mostly looking at those for the moment.

Could anyone familiar with these countries tell me does it matter which type of Masters we have?
My wife is planning to do a Masters here in Ireland before we move and is trying to decide between research and taught.

Unpossible · 12-02-2026 08:24PM

I had completely forgotten I posted this, but was checking out my profile and spotted it. Just in case anyone is interested in this topic here is my experience:

In 2020 I applied for a PhD position in Sweden and was accepted. I spotted the advert for the position on indeed.com. The position was quite well paid and I moved over with my family. The only difference in my situation when applying is that I had published a paper with colleagues in 2019 which really helped especially as I never published anything from my masters. The Swedes didn't really care about my masters being taught as their system is typically a 3 year ordinary bachelors + a 2 year taught masters. It roughly works out the same as our 4 year hons bachelors + a year for a taught masters. I say this because during my PhD I supervised a number of masters projects as part of my department duties. Of course a masters by research would have been more valuable for me, but ultimately didn't matter.

Anyway, for me I had to earn a certain amount of credits through courses etc, produce 4 papers (though one was a conference paper), I then wrote a thesis that tied the whole thing together with the papers provided in the apendices. There can be variences depending on the department or university you are attending. The whole process was 5 years and I was considered both staff and a student so I got the best of both worlds. The defence was in September and is public, it involved an hour long "conversation" with my opponent, then the panel of external examiners made up of professors in the field asked questions, then the general audience asked questions. Then the committee left to confer and came back to announce I passed.

I mentioned my wife above, she did do a research masters in Ireland before we left and worked as a nurse for a short while in Sweden. She then became a research nurse and has recently started a PhD part-time. She is in a different university to me (the city has 2 universities) and in a different fielf so her requirements are slightly different in terms of the credits needed and types of papers required.

So after all that I can say it is possible to get accepted into a PhD program outside of Ireland with a taught masters.

PhD's in Europe

Comments