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Why an Executive PhD ?

The program offers a structure tailored to your professional life during the three-year period.

The Executive PhD at the Université Paris-Dauphine is a doctoral level program, based on the concept of “engaged research”, which is offered to working professionals in order to give them all the necessary research tools to theorize their professional experience and produce academic research of the highest quality.

Paris-Dauphine University’s Executive PhD aims at encouraging communication between two worlds often distant, that of management research and that of the enterprise.

This merger allows you to:

• Give a scientific scale to your “intuitions”
• Gain legitimacy/visibility in your professional sphere
• Access a global vision of an enterprise’s strategy,its functional organizations including the latest projections in theoretic research within a scientific framework

Why Dauphine ?

The Université Paris-Dauphine has been one of the first universities in Europe to offer an Executive PhD, since 2008, and the first to do so in France. Today, this program is a growing success with an average annual graduating class of 16 participants. From 30 % to more than half are international students. The EDBA is a rich interactive experience that encourages international participation.

Program Overview

A program for Senior Professionals Executives

The Executive PhD is an Executive Education program, part-time, over three years and enables participants to continue their professional activities on a full-time basis.

Program rythme is as follows :

- Residential seminars on the Dauphine campus in Paris one week per term (in October, March and July)

- Online seminars 2 days a month (Friday afternoon and Saturday), between residential seminars

The program lasts 3 years and is organized as follow:

• A base of 13 days targeting a deep understanding of the theoretical foundations of Management Science, of which 6 days of theoretical seminars "a la carte"
• 18 days of research methodology
• 17 days of Practice of Research concerning in-depth research practices to decrypt research challenges and tools, of which 7 collective tutorings, 7 seminars of Practice, 3 days of Writing seminars.
• 3 assignments designed to master and strengthen research requirements

Drafting a thesis once the research tools are mastered.

Program

Université Paris Dauphine-PSL designed a program of 288 hours (supervision time excluded) that accompanies its students all the way through their studies. The Executive PhD takes place over three years and can, with special permission from the Scientific Committee, include a fourth year. The first year is devoted to a methodic and conceptual foundation via courses at the Université and to elaborating a scientific project. In the second year, in-depth seminars are proposed as well as the development of an empirical assignment. The third year is dedicated to completing the latter assignment as well as to writing the Executive PhD thesis.

The Executive PhD course of study has been designed around the following major themes.

Seminars

Readings

Before beginning classes, some readings are requested to prepare future students for the program.

Throughout the program, compulsory readings will punctuate students’ work to complement face-to-face lectures and ensure thorough comprehension of the various tools (methodology, theories, research practices, etc.).

Assignments

3 presentations ahead from Executive PhD pre-defense:

• Research Project
• Litterature Review and research design
• Data Collection & Analysis

Participants profiles

The Executive PhD participants are high-level professionals ideally with an international profile or experience. More than 2/3rds of the Executive PhD students come from abroad (USA, Korea, Hong-Kong, Germany, Egypt, Lebanon…)

The average age is approximately 40 years old. Our students are generally between 35 and 55 years old.

Participant motivations are diverse:

• Desire to theorize a professional experience
• Desire to develop, complement or test the scientific robustness of a tool
• Desire to change careers
• Pursue an in-depth analysis of a specific area after an MBA
• Desire to transmit knowledge in a structured manner

What brings together the whole of our participants is the desire to develop an in-depth analysis through an asserted intellectual challenge.

You are an Executive Senior Manager

You are a working professional (entrepreneur, senior manager, consultant, teacher or lecturer), and have more than 10 years experience.

• You have a desire to theorize a professional experience and to share it
• You wish to theorize your practical experience
• You would like to produce high-level academic research and diffuse it through publication in academic journals and texts and to bring your contribution to a specific field
• You wish to pursue an in-depth analysis and write a thesis on a concrete managerial problem through the tools of scientific research
• You wish to obtain the title of “Executive Doctor” or “Academically Qualified” for a change in career

The program offers a structure tailored to your professional life during the three-year period.

Hesitate no longer: the Executive PhD at the Université Paris-Dauphine is made for you!

10 reasons to enroll in Dauphine’s Executive PhD ?

1 – You are supported by a team of professors and researchers of the highest level, guaranteeing the quality of the program and the supervision, essential criteria for differentiating other programs.

2 – You are part of the Number 1 French University worldwide in Management Research: six research centers (4 of which are associated with the CNRS), a doctorate school with seven thesis programs (management, economics, Science, IT, Law, Sociology, Political Sciences), more than 200 doctoral students, 430 PhDs, 77 thesis defenses in 2013, more than 20 research and teaching chairs, initiatives and think tanks, more than 40 research contracts signed in 2013.

3 – The level of the instruction at Université Paris-Dauphine makes the university the leading choice of doctorates in Management in France in the fields of Finance/ Marketing/ Accounting-Audit-Control/ Organization/ Strategy/ IT. More than 20 doctorate theses were awarded national or international accolades over the last 10 years.

4 – You learn at the leading French university accredited by EQUIS (the most selective accreditation worldwide for universities and Schools of Management).

5 – You establish strong links with professors and students alike while becoming part of a substantial alumni network.

Link to Alumni Network

6 – You will discover an academic spirit and collaboration encouraging the elaboration and development of research projects as well as assistance from faculty in the publication of texts.

7 – You will benefit from a privileged and stimulating environment: the Université Paris-Dauphine houses the leading research library in Economics and Management in France. The library holds more than 60,000 books, 17 study rooms, and 620 reading areas. Registration in the EDBA program includes access to the whole of the university’s digital resources as well as its academic databases.

8 – In a dynamic of progress for its students, Dauphine has been a part of the excellent initiative PSL (Paris Sciences and Letters) since 2011. This illustrates Dauphine’s ambition to develop as a research university among the top 20 institutions worldwide.

9 – Students of the Executive PhD program benefit from the support of the largest Management Center in France, the CNRS: DRM – Dauphine Research in Management, which includes a team of 76 distinguished researchers, 142 doctoral students and represents as many opportunities for exchange and collaboration.

10 – Université Paris-Dauphine is located in the heart of France and of Europe allowing for easy access to international students.