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Admission Autumn Semester 2025

The selection process is competitive. Only excellent students will be admitted to our Ph.D. Programmes. Admission is based on the Programme Committee’s evaluation of your submitted application documents (‘sur dossier’).

Here you may find information about the admission requirements, admission process and research assistant positions (intake September 2025).

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2025. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions.
Vacancies for Research Assistant positions & PhD in Economics and Econometrics (PEcon), intake September 2025, is listed below (this list is subject to regular updates):

Supervisor Topics No. positions
Francesco Audrino Financial Econometrics, Financial Economics, Computational Statistics with applications in Finance 1
Paolo Piacquadio Normative economics, Public economics, and Behavioral/Experimental economics 1

Please refer to this list when you write the description of your research interests and explicitly state your most preferred PhD supervisor(s) at the beginning of this description.

You may also bring your own funding, for example via a national grant (please explicitly state this in your application). In this case, consider also the list of all potential PEcon supervisors and of our faculty and their research interests.

Application procedure
1. The first and main step of the application is to submit the documents to the University’s job portal (except for the reference letters, which should be sent directly by the letter writers to gpefunisg.ch). No application fee needs to be paid at this point. University of St.Gallen master's students may apply if they expect to graduate in autumn 2025).

Required documents:

  • Degree certificates from each university attended (bachelor and master, including exchange programmes and 'transcripts of records' from unfinished programmes of study)
  • Motivation letter including a description of research interests (referring to the list of proposed fields/topics and potential supervisors) and stating your preferred specialisation (Economics or Econometrics). Please also indicate whether you already contacted a potential supervisor.
  • GRE/GMAT (some applicants may be exempted from having to present a GRE or GMAT result; a PDF of the scores is enough) [recommended, can also be provided later]
  • CV

Other necessary documents:

  • Evidence of English language proficiency (can be provided later)
  • Two reference letters, sent directly by the letter writers to gpefunisg.ch

Review of applications:

The first review of applications will take place after 31 January 2025. Please make sure to submit your application by this date for full consideration. Thereafter, applications may still be accepted subject to availability of free spaces.

2. In a second step:

  • external applicants who are offered research assistant positions and rematriculated applicants still need to upload their documents at a later stage at the University’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2025-15.08.2025). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.
  • successful applicants who are currently enrolled in a HSG master's programme need to register through Compass (10 April 2025-30 June 2025). Documents to be submitted are as follows: CV, short application letter (choice of specialisation; supervisor available; research assistant at the University?), request for credits, GRE result (quantitative), PhD student - supervisor agreement, signed.
  • external applicants who are not offered research assistant positions need to upload their documents at a later stage at the University’s formal PhD admission portal (1 February 2025 - 30 April 2025) Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2025. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions. Vacancies for research assistant positions & PhD in Finance (PiF), intake September 2025, is listed below (this list is subject to regular updates):

Supervisor Topics No. positions
Francesco Audrino Financial Econometrics, Financial Economics, Computational Statistics with applications in Finance 1
Christian Biener Behavioral Economics of Risk Management and Insurance 1 Link
Martin Eling Cyber risk, Risk management, Insurance 1
Markus Schmid Household Finance, Sustainable Finance 1
Tereza Tykvova Empirical corporate finance, Private equity, Venture capital 2

 Please refer to this list when you write the description of your research interests and explicitly state your most preferred PhD supervisor(s) at the beginning of this description.

You may also bring your own funding, for example via a national grant (please explicitly state this in your application). In this case, consider also the list of all potential PiF supervisors.

Application procedure

1. The first and main step of the application is to submit the documents to the University’s job portal (except for the reference letters, which should be sent directlyby the letter writers to gpefunisg.ch ). No application fee needs to be paid at this point. University of St.Gallen master's students may apply if they expect to graduate in autumn 2025). Please refer to this list when you write the description of your research interests and explicitly state your most preferred PhD supervisor(s) at the beginning of this description.

Required documents:

  • Degree certificates from each university attended (bachelor and master, including exchange programmes and 'transcripts of records' from unfinished programmes of study)
  • Description of research interests (referring to the list of proposed fields/topics and potential supervisors). Please state your desired specialisation (Economics or Econometrics) and indicate whether you already contacted a potential supervisor.
  • GRE/GMAT (some applicants may be exempted from having to present a GRE or GMAT result; a PDF of the scores is enough) [recommended, can also be provided later]
  • CV

Other necessary documents:

  • Evidence of English language proficiency (can be provided later)
  • Two reference letters, sent directly by the letter writers to gpefunisg.ch

Review of applications:
The first review of applications will take place after 31 January 2025. Please make sure to submit your application by this date for full consideration. Thereafter, applications may still be accepted subject to availability of free spaces.

2. In a second step:

  • external applicants who are offered research assistant positions and rematriculated applicants still need to upload their documents at a later stage at the University’s formal PhD admission portal (1 February 2025 - 15 August 2025). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.
  • successful applicants who are currently enrolled in a HSG master's programme need to register through Compass (10 April 2025 - 30 June 2025). Documents to be submitted: CV, motivation letter, PhD student - supervisor agreement, signed.
  • external applicants who are not offered research assistant positions need to upload their documents at a later stage at the University’s formal PhD admission portal (1 February 2025 - 30 April 2025). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.

Application procedure

1. First main step: Application via the SFI platform for St.Gallen Campus.

Deadlines:

1 November -  Application start on SFI platform

15 January - 1st round review applications

31 March - 2nd round review applications

SFI students must have an SFI supervisor and an SFI senior chair in their thesis committee.

You will find a list of PiF supervsiors who are also SFI faculty under PiF Supervisors & SFI Faculty. Please refer to this list when you are asked to state your most preferred PhD supervisor(s). 

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2025. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions. Vacancies for Research Assistant Positions & Ph.D. in Finance (PiF), intake September 2025, can be found below (this list is subject to regular updates):

Supervisor  Topics No. positions
Francesco Audrino Financial Econometrics, Financial Economics, Computational Statistics with applications in Finance 1
Christian Biener Behavioral Economics of Risk Management and Insurance 1 Link
Markus Schmid Household Finance, Sustainable Finance 1
Tereza Tykvova Empirical corporate finance, Private equity, Venture capital 2

Admitted candidates will start their coursework in September 2025. Admitted candidates may be offered research assistant positions. Vacancies for Research Assistant Positions & Ph.D. in Finance (PiF), intake September 2025, may be be find below (this list is subject to regular updates). You may also bring your own funding, for example via a national grant (please explicitly state this in your application).

2. In a second step:

  • external applicants who are offered research assistant positions and rematriculated applicants still need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2025-15.08.2025). Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.
  • successful applicants who are currently enrolled as HSG Master students need to register through Compass (10.04.2025-30.06.2025)
  • external applicants who are not offered research assistant positions need to upload their documents at a later stage at the university’s formal PhD admission portal (1.02.2025-30.04.2025) Please check which documents you will need to provide at that stage; at that point also the application/enrolment fee of 250 CHF needs to be paid.

GPEF PhD students are funded via research assistant positions at the supervisors chair. Actual salaries vary by the employment contract and typically start between 30.000-40.000 CHF in the first year, and reach 60.000 CHF towards the end of the PhD. In addition, the GPEF PhD programme offers generous funding for conference attendance.

Further Links

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