If you are used to thinking of a PhD as something you need a scholarship for, Europe can be a pleasant surprise. In much of the continent a PhD is a job: the university advertises a position, pays you a salary, and you apply for it much as you would for any other job. Alongside these sit doctoral fellowship programmes and classic PhD scholarships. Knowing which kind you are applying for changes how you search, what you send, and what you can expect to earn.
The examples below come from real adverts we checked on 5 October 2026 and list on our funded positions page.
1. The PhD as a salaried job
In Sweden, doctoral students are employed on fixed-term contracts that cover four years of full-time doctoral study. Many posts include up to 20% teaching or administration, which can stretch the contract to five years. Lund University's 2026 advert for a PhD in datacenter control, for example, offers SEK 35,900 a month to start, with yearly increases.
In Norway, the post is usually called a doctoral research fellowship. At the University of Oslo it typically lasts three years, and adverts in autumn 2026 offered NOK 550,800 to about 607,500 a year, from which 2% goes to the state pension fund.
In Denmark, three-year PhD positions are also salaried: a University of Copenhagen humanities PhD advertised in October 2026 paid about DKK 31,844 a month plus an 18.07% pension contribution.
Many PhD positions in the Netherlands and Germany are employment contracts too, though terms vary more, so read each advert. Because these are jobs, they come with employee rights, and in Sweden, Norway and Denmark you do not need a separate scholarship at all.
2. Doctoral fellowship programmes
Some universities and research centres recruit a whole cohort of PhD students at once, through a single competitive call. At ETH Zurich, for example:
- the ETH AI Center Doctoral Fellowship offers around 8 to 12 places, normally for three years and extendable by up to a year;
- the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems co-supervises each fellow with one advisor at ETH and one at a Max Planck Institute;
- the RobotX PhD Fellowship lets applicants choose up to three professors, who then review the application.
Fellowship calls usually run once a year with a single deadline, often in autumn, and you apply to the programme rather than to one professor's project.
3. PhD scholarships
The third route is a scholarship that pays you to do a PhD you arrange with a supervisor, often in another country:
- the DAAD pays doctoral candidates €1,300 a month, and its EPOS call lists €1,400 from February 2026;
- the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships fund doctoral research for researchers from about 180 countries, with a monthly stipend of CHF 2,450;
- Canada's Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral is worth $40,000 a year for three years, for students already enrolled at a Canadian university.
Scholarship routes usually need a supervisor to agree to host you first. Our guide to contacting PhD supervisors explains how.
How to read a PhD advert
PhD adverts are dense, and the details that matter most are easy to miss. Check these before you start writing:
- The deadline, with its time and time zone. Copenhagen's adverts close at 23:59 Central European Summer Time; ETH's AI Center fellowship closes at 16:00 Central European Time. Convert it to your own time.
- How you must apply. Many universities accept applications only through their online portal, and ETH says plainly that emailed applications are not accepted.
- Contract length and duties. "Four years full time, up to 20% teaching" can mean five years in total. Teaching is paid, and it is useful experience.
- Salary: monthly or yearly, and before what deductions. Norway quotes a yearly range, Sweden and Denmark a monthly figure; pension contributions may be added or deducted.
- Mobility rules. Positions funded by some EU programmes only accept people who have not lived or worked in the host country for more than 12 of the last 36 months. Lund's datacenter-control PhD has exactly this rule.
- For postdocs: how recent your PhD is. Lund's postdoc adverts require a doctorate completed no more than three years before the hiring decision.
- The start date. Some posts start within weeks; others in a fixed month such as February or January.
Where to find funded positions
- Our funded positions page, with each post's salary and deadline; listings come down when they close.
- University vacancy pages. Swedish, Danish and Swiss universities post PhD jobs on their own sites, such as Lund's vacancies list or ETH's job portal.
- National job boards. Norway's universities publish their posts on Jobbnorge.
- EURAXESS, the European Commission's portal for research jobs and fellowships across Europe.
Whatever you find, apply through the official posting. Genuine PhD positions never ask you to pay a fee to apply or to be selected; read our scam guide if anyone does.
Sources
- Lund University: Doctoral student in Automatic Control (datacenter control)
- Uppsala University: PhD student in Scalable Quantum Program Verification
- University of Oslo: PhD position in cancer chromatin biology
- University of Copenhagen: PhD Scholarship in China Studies
- ETH Zurich: ETH AI Center Doctoral Fellowship 2027; Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems; RobotX PhD Fellowship 2027
- Lund University: Postdoctoral fellow in AI-based protein design
- DAAD: EPOS call