Applications are now open for the Early Doctoral Competition in the Physics of the Universe specialization of the STEP’UP Doctoral School.
This early competition aims to award, at most, one doctoral contract from Université Paris Cité to a candidate of any nationality who demonstrates an exceptional academic record and possesses significant prior research experience. Such experience may include, for example, research internships leading to the publication of results in a peer-reviewed journal in which the candidate is a co-author (publication submitted or accepted). A pre-selection of applications will be conducted prior to the interviews for the early competition, which are scheduled to take place on the afternoon of March 24, 2026.
See the proposed thesis subjects here.
Before March 13th, 2026 at noon: the future supervisor should submit the application to ed560.stepup [at] u-paris.fr with a copy to the deputy-director Fabien Casse (fcasse@apc.in2p3.fr)
March 24th, 2026 afternoon: interviews (in visioconference) with shortlisted candidates, ranking and proposal to attribute the doctoral contract
Format of the interview
The candidate will present, in 10 minutes
- his/her academic training,
- previous internships or professional experience,
- the thesis topic (scientific context, motivation, plan, etc.)
The présentation will be followed by questions with the admission jury members.
- If the candidate intends to use a support for the presentation, the PDF of the solides must be sent the day before the interview to the e-mail address that will be indicated. Please don’t forget to put page numbers on the slides.
- The future thesis supervisons do not assist to the interview.
- The interview may be in English.
July 2026: meeting of the Council to validate the admissions.