BoostUrCAreer Doctoral Programme
Early-stage researchers involved in the BoostUrCAreer doctoral programme are offered to obtain a degree substantiated by an actual development and broadening of their research competences. The doctoral candidates are provided with:
• An excellent research environment composed of top institutions ;
• Attractive and selective working conditions. The BoostUrCAreer fellows design their curriculum in collaboration with their supervisors, including the host organisations for their academic secondment. Their career plan is assessed yearly by the fellows themselves, academics and mentors ;
• Interdisciplinary research options. Each doctoral project are interdisciplinary as it requires two supervisors from two research fields. The common training for all fellows fosters opportunities for more cross-fertilisation between fellows and disciplines ;
• Exposure to non-academic employment sectors. Thanks to the mentoring programme and the classes taught by non-academics, the BoostUrCAreer fellows will be highly and regularly exposed to the industry and other relevant employment sectors ;
• International networking. With two supervisors, each BoostUrCAreer fellow has access to two research networks. They also have a dedicated budget for participating to conferences and for the academic secondment, which must be abroad ;
• Training on transferable skills. The modules of the BoostUrCAreer common training focuses only on transferable skills (ethics, management, entrepreneurship, intellectual property rights (IPR), communication to name a few) ;
• High-quality supervision and mentoring schemes. To secure enough time available for the fellows, no BoostUrCAreer supervisor have more than two doctoral candidates (full time) to supervise each year. The mentor scheme provides the fellows with an individual, personalised, and regular follow-up of their career plans ;
• Support for the possible commercialisation of doctoral research work, and access to the alumni network ;
• Provision to participate or organise events to disseminate and communicate their results.
... while providing excellent working conditions to attract high achieving applicants.
The programme also provides to the fellows:
• Attractive salary: doctoral candidates get 2709 € as living allowance, including employer cost (gross salary ~ 1900 €, netto salary ~ 1500 €). In addition, the fellows get travel and mobility allowances (815 € per month, not taxable) ;
• A legal working time is 37 hours per week, with a daily working duration that does not exceed 10 hours ;
• Subsidized lunches and monthly pass for public transportation ;
• A total amount of yearly vacations of 45 days ;
• Paid sick leaves ;
• Parental leaves following the birth/adoption of a child ;
• Sick and parental leaves add up to the 42-month duration of the contract ;
• In addition to their income, the doctoral candidates who have family obligations receive an extra family allowance of 400 € per month. Furthermore, they benefit for each child of a monthly financial help from the French social security (calculations based on the household income and on the number of children under the age of 20) ;