Doctorate with a Scholarship

As a scholarship holder, you finance your doctorate with a scholarship from an external organization (e.g. a foundation, state research institution or funding agency) in Germany or abroad. You either bring the stipend “with you" when you come to TUM from another country, or apply for it when you start your doctorate at TUM. We highly recommend to inform yourself about possible doctoral scholarships as soon as possible because most of the scholarships have fixed application deadlines long before the intended start of the doctoral project. Please note that the TUM/TUM Graduate School do not offer any doctoral scholarships.

Scholarship holders have more freedom in shaping their work processes, but they enjoy the same academic support from their supervisor at TUM. Often, scholarship holders receive further (ideational) support from their scholarship providers, and/or are part of a doctoral or graduate program.

An unsolicited application is the most common way to apply for this kind of doctorate at the TUM. In order to do so, please contact a potential supervisor in a suitable research area with your CV, transcripts and research proposal/exposé. A well-designed research proposal and clear motivation why you wish to conduct you research under the supervision of the supervisor in question is especially important. Kindly consider our information sheet on “How to find a supervisor”. With our information sheet on “Research proposal”, we provide helpful information on how to design your research proposal/exposé. Further information on how to apply for a doctorate can be found in the section “application”