At the Department of Law, one or more PhD fellowships will be available as of 1 January 2026 or by further agreement. The place of work is at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense or in Esbjerg.
The primary task in the positions is research and, as a result, to prepare a PhD thesis within the three-year employment. As a PhD student at the Department of Law, you will be part of a legal research environment anchored at The Faculty of Business and Social Sciences.
You are expected to have academic qualifications corresponding to the level obtained by completing a relevant Master’s programme. If you have practical experience in subject areas relevant to the proposed research project, it is naturally an advantage, but it is neither required nor expected.
A PhD is a research degree at the highest international level. You will become part of an active learning environment, in Denmark as well as abroad, and you will obtain an extensive academic knowledge e.g. by participating in relevant PhD courses. Furthermore, you will gain teaching experience since part of the programme involves teaching certain courses at our law studies. You are expected to be able to teach in Danish and/or English.
As a PhD student, you will become part of the good research environment at our department. We cherish our good working environment, and therefore you are expected to show commitment and visibility in relation to the department – internally as well as externally – and to contribute positively to the department’s working environment, everyday life and ongoing operation.
More information about our PhD programme is available at the department’s website. On the website, you will also find the department’s qualifications criteria. The programme is provided by the PhD School at the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences who offer further information on their website.
The Department of Law has a cooperation agreement with Universita' Ca' Foscari in Venice. It means that we offer a so-called double PhD degree. You will find more information about the cooperation here.
Further information about the fellowships
For further information (regarding both the education and the application procedure), please contact PhD coordinator, Associate Professor Niels Skovmand Rasmussen at [email protected]. Please note that due to holidays, responses to inquiries cannot be expected in the month of July.
Application
The application must include the following:
• Motivated application
• Detailed Curriculum vitae (educational and work history should be specified by month and year)
• Master’s degree certificate including all examination results
• An application form (is available here)
• A project description (max 5 pages of 2,400 characters each, including spaces, notes, appendices, bibliography etc.). The guidelines for preparing a PhD project proposal for the Department of Law are available here.
• An abstract of the project description of no more than 250 words
• Publications, if any – however, no more than two. If one of the attached publications is a master thesis, only the problem formulation and the conclusion should be attached, not the entire thesis.
• Information on teaching experience or other forms of academic communication.
Documents should not contain a CPR number – if so, the CPR number must be crossed out.
Please note, you can only upload two files. The first file should contain the motivated application. The second file should contain the CV and the rest of the material. The files must be in Adobe PDF format. The two files together must not exceed 10 MB in size.
Documents which are not in Danish, Norwegian or Swedish must be translated into English. SDU may discard applications which are incomplete regarding the above-mentioned criteria without further notice.
Terms of employment
The applicant will be employed in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and AC (the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations) for academics in the state sector, including the associated circular on the job structure for academic staff at universities and the regulations for PhD students as described therein.
Employment as a PhD student is subject to the circular of 20 December 2021, on the agreement for academics in the state sector – Appendix 5, protocol on PhD students.
Application procedure
When the deadline for applications has expired, a number of applications are selected for an academic evaluation (shortlisting), based on an overall assessment of which of the applicants as regards both their qualifications and their project description match the strategies of the research groups and the department’s needs the best.
Subsequently, the chosen applicants will be assessed by a committee from the PhD School. Once they have submitted their report, each of the applicants in concern will receive the assessment concerning him/her. A number of applicants will then be invited to a job interview.
The University of Southern Denmark wishes our staff to reflect the diversity of our society and thus welcome applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of personal background.
The Department of Law is part of the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, which is comprised of five departments. The department currently has approximately 65 permanent employees and a number of part-time lecturers. We work to ensure high quality and social relevance as regards both jurisprudent research, education and knowledge exchange.
The Department of Law offers the traditional law degree (the Bachelor programme and the Master’s programme) both as daytime studies and part-time studies (the teaching takes place on Saturdays). We also offer a Bachelor programme as well as a Master’s programme in Business Administration and Commercial Laws. In addition, the department is responsible for the teaching of other legal subjects offered at SDU, e.g. on the Master’s programme in Business Economics and Auditing, on the engineering programmes, on the Bachelor programmes in Economics and Business Administration and on the Diploma programmes in Business Administration.
The department is based on three of the University of Southern Denmark’s campuses: in Odense (where most of the employees are affiliated), in Kolding and in Esbjerg. The Bachelor programme in Esbjerg started in September 2023 for which reason the legal professional environment at that campus is still being developed.
