ADMISSION AND REGISTRATION
AVAILABLE PLACES: 25 places, of which a maximum of 10 can be part-time.

ADMISSION PROFILES

There are two candidate profiles for the Doctoral Program:

The ideal profile (profile # 1)

Students holding a Bachelor's or Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Management, Economics or a related area in addition to a Master's degree with research orientation in one of the areas of research in Business Administration and Management. More specifically, the following degrees are considered related to the area of knowledge covered by the Doctoral Program in Business Administration and Management: Psychology, Sociology, Advertising and Public Relations, Labor Relations and Human Resources, Commerce, Applied Statistics, Management and Public Administration, Tourism and International Relations.

The University Master's Degree that the current regulations require for access to PhD Studies should have a research orientation, and although the catalogue of this type of studiy is very broad, we can cite as indicative references the Master's Degree in Research in Business Management, Marketing and Accounting, the Master's Degree in Business Finance and the Master's Degree in Actuarial and Financial Sciences, which are currently offered by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Actuarial and Financial Sciences, which are currently offered at the Complutense University of Madrid, and which have a clear scientific vocation, focused on the development of doctoral theses and academic research.

A second profile (profile # 2)

Students who hold a Bachelor's or Bachelor's degree in a discipline other than those listed above but who have, in any case, a research-oriented Master's degree equivalent to those listed in the previous paragraph.

ADMISSION PROCESS

Candidates who wish to apply to the PhD Program in Business Administration at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid must:

1. Fulfill the requirements for access to the degree that enables access to the program: more information.
2. In the case of candidates with non-Spanish access degrees, they must comply with the obligation to proceed to their homologation before submitting the application for admission: more information.
3 It is advisable to contact a professor of the doctoral program with a line of research aligned with the candidate's interests in order to write together with him/her the Doctoral Thesis Proposal: for more information about professors of the program and their lines of research.
4. Submit a dissertation proposal using the following template: Doctoral Thesis Proposal Template.
5. Submit a Curriculum Vitae showing the university teaching positions held, the official degrees obtained and their average grade, professional experience in management positions in the field of the doctoral program.

6. In the case  of candidates whose mother tongue is not Spanish, accredit their command of the Spanish language. The valid certificate of proficiency in Spanish is the one issued by the Instituto Cervantes, which is the Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera (DELE) at Level B2 or higher.

7. In the case of candidates whose mother tongue is not English, accredit the command of the English language. The valid certificates of English language proficiency are the one issued by the Official School of Languages of Spain for the 2nd course of Higher Cycle or Advanced Level certificate, Certificates approved by ACLES (Association of Language Centers in Higher Education) for the CertAcles B2 Level, Certificates issued by CambridgeEnglish Language Assessment (ESOL Examinations) for the First Certificate level, the Vantage BEC2 level (Business English Certificate), the Pass B2 International Certificate in Financial / Legal English, level 5.5 or higher of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Pass B2 International Certificate in Financial / Legal English, level 5.5 or higher of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic & General, level 60 or higher of the Business Language Testing System, or certificates issued by Educational Testing Service (ETS) such as the Test of English as aForeign Language -Internet Based (TOEFL) with 87 points or higher (or 500 points or higher in the old system) or the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) with a level higher than 1095.

Since the approval on June 27, 2023 of the PhD Program in Business Administration Modification, the SELECTION CRITERIA for candidates and their RELATIVE WEIGHTINGS are as follows:

1. Adequacy of the candidate's academic background to the recommended profile of access (preferably having completed a previous research master's degree) and the lines of research of the program. The Academic Committee will assess the affinity of the subjects of the curriculum of the access degrees to the lines of research of the program as well as the knowledge of the English language accrediting a level B2 of the CEFR. Up to 20 points.
2. Adequacy of the candidate's previous experience to the lines of research of the program. The Academic Committee will assess the affinity of the nature and extent of the candidate's previous research, teaching or professional activity with the lines of research of the doctoral program. Up to 25 points.
3. Novelty and scientific rigour of the doctoral thesis proposal. Candidates are recommended to elaborate a doctoral thesis proposal according to the model included in https://www.ucm.es/doctorado/doctoradoaducm/admision. The Academic Committee will assess the novelty of the research topic, the scientific quality of the literature supporting the research topic, the feasibility of the work plan and the expected contributions of the doctoral thesis. Likewise, in order to guarantee the novelty and scientific rigour of the proposal, it is recommended that the proposal be approved by a professor of the doctoral program prior to its submission to the Academic Committee. Up to 40 points.
4. Qualifications of bachelor's and master's degree studies. The Academic Committee will evaluate the average grade of the candidates in their bachelor's and master's degree studies. In the case of candidates coming from universities other than the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Academic Committee will standardize the grades according to the information available regarding objective quality indexes of the institutions of origin. Up to 15 points.

REGISTRATION

Enrollment process for the UCM Doctorate: https://edoctorado.ucm.es/matriculadoctorado

SCHOLARSHIPS

To consult the UCM scholarships click here

To consult the scholarships of the Carolina Foundation for Latin American students click here

To consult the UCM pre-doctoral assistant contracts click here

To consult the state grants (Juan de la Cierva, FPU, Industrial Doctorates, etc.) for doctoral studies click here

To consult the regional grants for doctoral studies click here

To consult the doctoral grants of the Fundación la Caixa click here

To consult the ONCE doctoral grants for students with disabilities click here

To consult the doctoral grants of the Banco Sabadell Foundation click here

ASSIGNMENT OF TUTORS AND SUPERVISORS (Maximum period of 3 months since official enrollment 31 October)

For those students admitted to the program who have applied with a thesis project endorsed by a professor of our doctoral program, the Academic Committee will maintain said assignment as tutor and supervisor, once both have been consulted.

For the rest of the students admitted to the Program, the Academic Committee will decide on an initial assignment of tutor and supervisor depending on the subject of the doctoral thesis, the availability of PhD faculty of our program and the final acceptance of the doctoral student and the assigned tutor and supervisor.

In all cases, following the Code of Good Practices of the UCM Doctoral School, in the specific regulations of our doctoral program, the maximum number of doctoral students per supervisor is three, exceptionally four in the case of a co-direction. Likewise, there may be a maximum of three co-directors per doctoral thesis.