HDR? submit your projects to the doctoral school competition!

The competition for the distribution of BioSPC doctoral contracts is an annual competition organized by department and in three phases:

  1. Call for projects for all HDRs attached to the doctoral school.
  2. Call for applications from students on the projects proposed by the HDRs and posted online.
  3. Auditions of the pre-selected candidates according to the academic grid.

Key links

Competition Schedule Link
New HDR, you want to get affiliated to the BioSPC ED Link
Academical grade calculation (‘grille académique’) Link
‘Certification File’ Link (you must download the form on your computer, fill it and generate a pdf file to upload in the Online submission form)
Online submission form to propose a project for the competition Link
Results of the competition Link (after the competition)

 

Qualification requirements

In order to qualify as a thesis director, it is required to have the habilitation to direct research (HDR).For statutory employees who do not yet have the HDR, authorization to submit a thesis project will only be accepted if, and only if:

  • Authorization to defend the HDR has been obtained from the administration (a copy of the authorization to defend the HDR, signed by the university presidency, will be requested by the doctoral school before publication of the thesis proposal).
  • The HDR defense date must be prior to October 1 of the year of the competition, the date officialized by the administration.
  • If you are applying for authorization to supervise a thesis (ADT), this must be granted by the doctoral school and the administration no later than the closing date of the calls for proposals.
  • The HDR must be part of a team affiliated with BioSPC. For new HDRs joining an affiliated team: https://ed562.u-paris.fr/equipes-daccueil/direction-de-these/

Conditions related to the supervision ratio

The supervision ratio must not exceed two PhD students per HDR, whether the HDR is acting as a main supervisor or a co-supervisor.

Co-supervising a PhD student is considered equivalent to full supervision.

There is one exception to this rule: cotutelle agreements, provided that the cotutelle contract clearly states that the PhD student will spend at least 50% of their time in the partner country.

Therefore, at the time of project submission, the PhD supervisor may only be supervising one PhD student. They may supervise two if the request for jury composition for one of the students has been submitted before the application deadline.

Number of authorized submissions

Each HDR holder may submit only one project to the doctoral school competition, with a maximum of one proposed candidate.

However, a PhD supervisor who is not currently supervising any PhD students (and is presenting a student in the competition) may recruit a second PhD student, provided that this second student obtains funding through another channel (foundation, CIFRE, ANR, regional funding, etc.).

Links and Documents for Project Submission

You can now submit a PhD project if you wish to propose one for the 2025 doctoral contract allocation competition. To do this, you need to complete the ‘Certification File’, which must be upoloaded in the Online submission form. This ‘Certification File’ must be in PDF format, and its size must not exceed 100 MB. Please follow this naming format for your files:

department*_2025_LASTNAME_Firstname of the thesis supervisor.**

The project will need to be copied into a field within the form, rather than uploaded as a separate file as in previous years.

On line submission form: https://forms.gle/zzkMr83R2WyXSwgX9

🕛 Deadline for project submission: April 24, 2026 at 23:59 (Paris time).

After this deadline, no project or additional document will be accepted, in order to ensure equal treatment of all applications. The submission link will be deactivated accordingly.

As this is a state-funded competition, no exceptions can be made, otherwise the entire competition could be invalidated.

🎓 Candidates will have until May 25, 2026 at 23:59 (Paris time) to submit their electronic applications.

If the number of applicants is too high, a pre-selection will take place on June 5, 2026, based on the student’s academic file, including grades and academic ranking (first semester of Master 2 included).

There is one competition per department. They will take place on the following dates:

  • June 25–26, 2026: PP Department
  • June 29–30, 2026: GENYX and IM Departments
  • July 1–2, 2026: IMMUNO and MECA Departments

 

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