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Do you want to start your career as a PhD candidate at Amsterdam Business School? On average we welcome 15 candidates to our school every year. What is it like to be a PhD candidate at Amsterdam Business School? Watch the video where our students share their experiences and read more about how we select our candidates at this page.

Becoming a PhD student at Amsterdam Business School?

The Amsterdam Business School aims to conduct and high-quality international research and offers teaching that meets international standards at a high-level. We regularly offer PhD positions for outstanding candidates who want to pursue an academic career in the inspiring and challenging academic environment of our school and who are willing to contribute to its lively community. Currently about 60 PhD candidates are working on their PhD research at Amsterdam Business School, running the gamut of business and management disciplines.

At the University of Amsterdam Business School there are two main ways to start a PhD trajectory: through the Tinbergen Institute and on a vacant project. Furthermore, we sometimes accept open applications. Most PhD students are employed by faculty as PhD researcher in a full-time position with all the benefits of employment, including a good salary. The entry into such a position is either through one of the research master programmes of the Tinbergen Institute (see below) or directly in an open vacancy. Another route is by submitting a research proposal either as a student on a scholarship (such as the China Scholarship Council Programme) or e.g. with employer funding for those working in a R&D department in another organisation. Since September 2026, the section Business Analytics opened a programme for visiting PhD students.

  • Tinbergen Institute (finance, OR, data science)

    The Amsterdam-Rotterdam Consortium for Graduate Education (ARC), a joint initiative by t he University of Amsterdam (UvA), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) provides 2 important PhD programmes that prepare for a research trajectory at Amsterdam Business School. 

    1. An intensive 2-year research master in Economics, Econometrics and Finance. Students who pursue a PhD in finance are selected from this research master at the Tinbergen Institute.
    2. The research master in Business Data Science has a strong focus on data science related to multiple business fields. Students who pursue a PhD in e.g. Operations Management are selected from this research master. 

    Both Master's programmes prepare students for a subsequent 3-year PhD trajectory with a state of the art course programme with rigorous training in the core subjects and tools of economics, econometrics and finance in the first year and specialisation in one of the many fields of research through field course work and the research master thesis in the second year. At the end of the programme, students are matched with a supervisor based on their research interests. Students who are assigned a supervisor from ABS have the opportunity to start the PhD trajectory at our school. 

  • Vacancies for projects in other business and management related areas
  • Amsterdam visiting PhD programme in operations research

    The Business Analytics section at the Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, is open for applications for its Amsterdam visiting PhD programme in operations research. The program is highly selective and intended for outstanding PhD candidates seeking to collaborate on frontier research.
    The programme offers PhD candidates the opportunity to spend 3 to 12 months at the University of Amsterdam, collaborating closely with our faculty on high-quality research. The primary objective of the visit is to conduct joint research leading to the submission of a high-quality scientific paper.
    The research topic will be determined in consultation with the applicant and one or more faculty members. Projects should fit within the four research interests and are expected to lead to a joint scientific publication.

    Dr. J. (Jannis) Kurtz

    Programme coordinator

  • Open applications

    Candidates who wish to pursue a PhD on a specific topic (usually related to their work environment) and who are financially self-supporting (e.g. with company funding or a formal external scholarship) can apply for an external PhD trajectory. The first step is to match the candidate and proposal with a supervisor at Amsterdam Business School in the relevant field. If a supervisor has been found, a similar trajectory as for those on a vacant position is followed and a tailor-made educational programme will be compiled.