For a funded PhD in Europe, the first "yes" often has to come from a person, not a committee. The Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships require a Swiss professor to host you. Ghent University's doctoral scholarships need the explicit commitment of a Ghent supervisor. DAAD doctoral grants usually expect one. Even salaried positions such as Norwegian PhD fellowships are easier to win when you understand the group behind the advertisement.
Two kinds of funded PhD
- Advertised positions: a project already has funding, and the group advertises for a candidate — common in Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, and on portals such as Jobbnorge and EURAXESS. You apply like a job.
- Self-proposed projects: you bring a research idea and a scholarship, and a supervisor agrees to host you — the model for Swiss government, DAAD and many national scholarships.
For advertised positions, follow the advertisement exactly. For self-proposed projects, read on.
Finding the right supervisor
- Start from the literature you already use. Who wrote the papers you cite most? Where do they work now?
- Read two or three of their recent papers — recent is important, because interests change.
- Check the group page: current PhD students, funding, and whether they say they are taking new students.
- Shortlist five to eight people, not fifty. Mass emails are easy to spot and easy to ignore.
The first email
Professors receive many of these. The ones that get replies are short, specific and easy to act on.
- Subject line: specific — "Prospective PhD: groundwater nitrate modelling (Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship 2027)".
- First two sentences: who you are and exactly what you are asking for — supervision for a named scholarship, or interest in an advertised position.
- One paragraph of fit: what you have done (degree, thesis, methods, publications) and how it connects to one of their recent papers, by name.
- Your idea in three or four sentences, with a one-page outline attached — not a 20-page proposal.
- Attachments: CV and transcript as PDFs with sensible file names.
- Length: under 250 words in the body.
An example
Dear Professor Keller,
I am a hydrology graduate from Kumasi and would like to apply for a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship (2027–28) to do a PhD under your supervision, if you are willing to host me.
My master's thesis modelled nitrate transport in shallow aquifers using MODFLOW, and your 2025 paper on coupling land-use change with groundwater quality directly addresses the limitation I found. I would like to test that coupling in West African catchments, where monitoring data are sparse.
I attach a one-page outline, my CV and my transcripts. Would you be open to a short call in the coming weeks?
Kind regards,
[Name]
(Names and details in this example are invented.)
Follow-up
- No reply after two weeks? One polite follow-up is fine. After that, move on.
- If they say yes, agree the next steps in writing: the support letter the scholarship needs, and when you will send a fuller proposal.
- If they say no, thank them — and ask whether a colleague might be a better fit. Many introductions happen this way.