Doctoral admission for 2025 Spring semester

Tallinn University offers three statuses of PhD places:

• A Junior Research Fellow is a student and an employee of the university at the same time. The exact workload and nominal study time depends on Individual Study and Research Plan and can be from 4 to 6 years. Starting from September 1, 2025, the minimum salary by the workload 1,0 is 1900 euros per month.
• A Doctoral Student has a status of a student. The nominal study time depends from Individual Study and Research Plan and can be from 4 to 8 years. A Doctoral Student is not entitled to receive a Doctoral Allowance nor the TLU Doctoral scholarship.  
• A Knowledge Transfer Doctoral Fellow works in an external institution or in an enterprise where he/she performs duties related to the doctoral studies under an employment contract with a load of at least 0.5. The  knowledge transfer doctoral fellow has at least two supervisors, one of whom is from the company or institution where the research is carried out.  In addition to research work at the knowledge transfer partner, the knowledge transfer doctoral fellow must also participate in university teaching activities.

Available study places are shown on the programme's webpage. If the programme has places to a junior research fellow and a doctoral student statuses and the applicant wishes to apply to both places, an application must be submitted to both competitions on Dream Apply.

Application deadlines