Graduate School

Prospective students

Eight good reasons to come to Tinbergen Institute

7. Gateway to a wide variety of PhD thesis opportunities in Amsterdam and Rotterdam

The TI MPhil program is the research master in economics and finance and not only provides a PhD-level training in these fields, but also allows students to explore the many departmental research groups before they commit to work on a thesis with a specific advisor. TI supports this matching process with individualized advice and information provision, and with seminars in which all research groups present themselves to students.

Once matched to an advisor, and after successful completion of the MPhil program, students can usually transfer to fully-funded three-year PhD positions. Together, the three departments have committed at least 28 such positions annually to the outflow from the MPhil program. These PhD positions are allocated to students and are not earmarked for particular professors or research projects. In practice, TI has always been able to offer such positions to students who have successfully completed the MPhil program and who wish to transfer to the PhD. In addition, TI professors are often looking for students for project-based positions funded from external sources, such as the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).


Outflow of MPhil students after graduation, in percentages

[Reason 8: Tinbergen Institute has still more to offer...!]

Nalan Basturk (Turkey)

Second-year PhD student, MPhil diploma in 2007

The five-block intensive coursework in the MPhil program, and the various seminars held at TI introduced a wide variety of topics. During these courses and seminars, moreover, we always had the opportunity to interact with many professors. These two aspects were extremely helpful to me in making field or topic decisions.

Tinbergen Institute offers diverse possibilities in terms of the field choice and PhD positions. I am now a second-year PhD student at Erasmus University, in the Econometrics Department. It's been encouraging for me to see that my two years of hard work in the MPhil program are appreciated, and that the research groups warmly welcome TI students who want to continue their academic career in these fields.