Competitive exam for UNS fundings

Allocation Policies

The research grants offered by UCA, MINES ParisTech and Inria (CORDI-S allocations) represent a minority of PhD fundings at ED STIC. On average, there are 10 UCA allocations, 2 CORDI-S allocations and 1 to 2 MINES ParisTech allocations per year for the Sophia site. The other PhD fundings (about 85% of the PhD fundings) comes mainly from contracts carried out by the research teams. In the field of Information Technologies (IT), which has many concrete applications, the difficulty for the research teams is to finance doctorates about the foundations of the discipline or about emerging subjects. As almost all contractual sources of funding concern applications.

In this context, UCA allocations and MINES ParisTech allocations follow the following principles:

  • One compare triplets made of PhD subject/supervisor/candidate.
  • After a campaign of posting subjects and searching for candidates, which lasts about 3 months, a first meeting of the appropriate commitee selects, on the basis of the written material, the candidates who will be admitted to the auditions (approximately 2 times more candidates than available fundings are retained among 4 to 5 times more applications).
  • After auditions, in addition to the selected candidates, a waiting list is set up to compensate for possible withdrawals.
  • Experience shows that the quality of the candidates is a strong criterion of the triplet and that the balance between the laboratories and the teams is a criterion which helps to compare the almost equal applications, it is the same for the fundamental or emergent character of the PhD subject.

After validation by the director of the ED STIC, two additional steps are necessary for the MINES ParisTech allocations:

  • to decide the type of funding (MINES, "chaire" or Armines),
  • a meeting with the heads of doctoral specialties to interclass the demands on "MINES" allowances.


Strating from the academic year 2020/2021, HDRs of EDSTIC who have obtained two or more "institutional" allocations (EUR / Establishment allocations (e.g. MESR)/ 3IA / labex / Cofund / Inria CORDI / IDEX) during the 2 years preceding the EDSTIC allocation campaign, cannot propose a topic during the current EDSTIC campaign.

Parity policy for EDSTIC-UCA allocations
Starting with the 2020 allocation campaign, the coucil of the EDSTIC has decided to reserve one of the institution's allocations (ex. ministerial allocations) for a colleague who has defended her HDR for less than 3 years. We hope that this measure will help our colleagues to strengthen their uture applications to be able to progress in their career.
The modalities of application and the calendar are identical to those for the selection of allowances. The triplet supervisor/subject/candidate will be examined during the meeting to select the files to be auditioned for the allowances and the decision will be communicated to the female HDR colleagues who have applied at the end of this meeting. 

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

These principles reasonably balance the allocated resources between the laboratories: over time, the number of given allocations is approximately proportional to the number of members of ED STIC in each laboratory. The laboratories can also express their thematic priorities by attaching a letter of support to the application and these thematic priorities reinforce the "subject" part of the triplet. Moreover, in practice, more than half of the aforementioned allocations are allocated to students from masters abroad. Therefore, videoconference and English oral presentations are permitted.

The CORDI-S competition is managed with the same criteria and the ED STIC participates in the committee (the director of ED STIC, or a representative, is a member of the classification committee). A stronger weight is given to the PhD subject and to the hosting team. In consultation with Inria Sophia Antipolis - Méditerrannée, the results of the CORDI-S competition are known to the board of ED STIC before the classification of UCA allocations since Inria is one of the laboratories that benefit from the latter.

L'école doctorale apporte également son soutien au montage de dossiers pour des concours plus « périphériques »: allocations de la région, financements proposés par diverses sociétés savantes, nationales ou internationales, etc. Les allocations de UCAjedi ou des LabEx «UCN@Sophia» et «SignaLife» (4 à 6 par an au total) sont fléchées thématiquement, attribuées uniquement sur la base du sujet et d'une collaboration inter-laboratoire. Elles ne couvrent qu'un sous-domaine retreint des STIC mais concernent plusieurs laboratoires rattachés à d'autres ED. Elles sont donc similaires aux autres financements contractuels. Toutefois un représentant de l'ED STIC participe généralement au comité de classement des sujets.

The doctoral school also supports the applications to more "peripheral" funding competitions: allocations from the region, funding offered by various national or international academic societies, etc. The allocations of UCAjedi or LabEx "UCN @ Sophia" and "SignaLife" (4 to 6 per year in total) are allocated solely on the basis of the subject and an inter-laboratory collaboration. They cover only a small sub-domain of Information Technologies and concern several laboratories attached to other EDs. They are therefore similar to other contractual financing. However, a representative of the ED STIC generally participates on their committee.

Competition Process

To apply for an allocation, you must:

  1. Consult the ED allocation policy above
  2. Consult the list of PhD subjects proposed for the competition and select a subject and its supervisor
  3. Contact the corresponding PhD supervisor
  4. Validate the application form online (it will be sent automatically by email to the supervisor).

The thesis supervisor will select one application and submit it to the ED Scientific Council.

Schedule:

The schedule of the 2018 campaign :

  1. Opening of the web site for submission of the PhD subjects and candidature of students =  10th March
  2. Opening of the web site for depositing candidates' files by the thesis directors themselves = 10th March
  3. End of PhD subject submission = 4th May
  4. Application deadline = 11th May
  5. Deadline for selection of candidates by supervisors and downloading of his(her) files by the thesis supervisor = 12th May
  6. Scientific committee for selection of hearings = 19th May
  7. Auditions (1 full day) = 10th and 11th June
  8. Classification (half-day) = 12th June


Web page of previous years.