项目介绍

2026年9月24日

Applications are invited for one or more fully funded PhD scholarships at the Department of Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense.

Depending on academic qualifications, applicants may be enrolled in either the 4+4 or the 5+3 PhD programme. Both programmes include a research stay abroad, typically of six months’ duration, and offer a competitive full-time salary.

We aim to appoint the successful candidate as soon as possible, ideally with a start date of 15 January  2027, while remaining flexible regarding the exact timing.

About the Department and Research Environment

The Department of Economics is an international department with a strong tradition of excellence in research and teaching across a wide range of fields within economics. Research, teaching, and outreach activities are organized within four research groups: Econometrics and Data Science; Economic History; Macroeconomics; and Microeconomics. Further information about the department and its research groups is available on the department website.

The PhD student will be affiliated with the Historical Economics and Development Group (HEDG), which focuses on Economic History with a strong emphasis on applied microeconomics and causal inference. HEDG is internationally acknowledged as a leading research group and attracts substantial grants and media coverage, as well as publishing books and articles with top outlets.

The position

The successful candidate will become part of an international research environment and work closely with Associate Professor Anthony Wray on Private Foundations, a Carlsberg Foundation-funded project on the roles of private investment and medical education in shaping innovation and inequality in the United States during the early twentieth century. For further information about the project, please see this link.

These are applied microeconomic questions in health, labour, education, and demographic economics, approached with historical data. We are interested in strong applied microeconomists broadly, not only in candidates who already identify as economic historians, and there is scope for the PhD student to develop their own questions within the project.

The successful candidate is expected to contribute to high-quality research within the scope of the project, including independent, single-authored work. In addition, the candidate will be involved in teaching and supervision within economics at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

The PhD student will be supervised by Associate Professor Anthony Wray and will join a research group that includes two postdoctoral researchers and scientific research assistants, with access to an international network of collaborators.

The project has its own GPU environment — university hardware, reserved for this project and its research team. It runs open-weight models locally for large-scale digitisation and data extraction from historical sources, alongside frontier models. We are also building an autonomous workflow for agentic-supported academic research, and the PhD student will have the chance to help develop that workflow.

Applicants’ profile

Applicants should have completed a relevant master’s degree in Economics, Mathematics and Economics, or related disciplines. Qualified candidates currently enrolled in a relevant master’s programme are also welcome to apply. Furthermore, we expect applicants to:

• Have solid knowledge of econometrics and applied quantitative methods, with experience using Python, R, Stata, or similar tools, and be eager to learn and apply new methods.
• Be dedicated, capable of working independently and in cooperation with a PhD supervisor.
• Have strong English skills, both spoken and written. 
• Have good interpersonal skills, be interested in engaging with national and international researchers.

The following qualifications are an advantage

• Have an interest in, or potentially experience with, machine learning, large language models, and natural language processing.
• Experience working with large datasets and conducting empirical research. 
• Demonstrated interest in economic history or cultural economics.

We are an international department, and the working language is English.

Further information about the position can be obtained from Head of Administration Astrid Holm Nielsen, e-mail: astni@sam.sdu.dk. For general questions regarding relocation, housing, taxes etc., contact the SDU’s International Staff Office. 

How to apply for this position

Employment as a paid PhD fellow takes place in accordance with the circular of 20 December 2021 on the collective agreement for academics in the state – appendix 5, protocol on PhD fellowships.

For more information on the department guidelines for qualification and recruitment please see our Appointment Guidelines.

The application must include (all attachments must be in Adobe PDF format): 

• Detailed CV – the education and work history must be month and year specific.
• A certified copy of your master’s degree certificate, including transcripts of all examination results. Foreign diplomas that are not in Norwegian, Swedish or English must be accompanied by a translation into Danish or English, as well as a translation of the official description of the marking scale used. If your degree has not yet been completed, please state your expected date of completion.
• A motivational letter describing why you are a good match for analyzing the topic and how your skills provide a solid foundation to do so (max. 5 pages incl. reference list).
• A project description (max 5 pages of 2400 characters each, including spaces, notes, appendices, bibliography etc.).