BI Marketing PhD 2027 — Fully Funded, NOK 623,200 a Year
Fully funded (salaried doctoral position) PhD scholarship in Norway for All nationalities students 2026
Apply now: a four-year salaried marketing doctorate in Oslo paying NOK 623,200 a year with no tuition fees.
Eligibility
- Open to Norwegian and international applicants; two-year MSc or research master's/MPhil in marketing or a related field (MBA alone insufficient) with B average or higher; TOEFL 90 / IELTS 6.5 unless exempt; research proposal, CV and two recommendation letters required.
A funded business PhD in Europe usually means a stipend that barely covers rent in a capital city. BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo runs its doctoral programme the Norwegian way instead: PhD candidates are employed by the school, salaried on the state scale, and paid to study. Its Department of Marketing has opened a four-year PhD candidate position starting August 2027, and the current salary is NOK 623,200 a year, roughly EUR 53,000, with no tuition fees at any point.
What the award actually covers
This is employment, not a grant. The position is full-time for four years and combines doctoral research and coursework with teaching duties equal to 25 percent of a full professor's workload. The salary follows the Norwegian state salary scale and is adjusted upward in 2027, membership in BI's collective pension scheme is included, and you get a workspace on the Oslo campus. Because there are no fees, the salary is genuinely yours to live on, which in Oslo matters: a doctoral salary at this level covers rent, food and insurance with room left over, unlike stipend-based schemes in most of Europe.
Who can apply
BI welcomes applications from Norway and internationally. You need a qualifying research degree: a two-year MSc with thesis work, a research master's or MPhil in marketing or a closely related field, completed or expected by early summer 2027. An MBA alone does not meet the requirement, and BI expects a B average or higher. English proficiency is normally shown with TOEFL 90 or IELTS 6.5, though exemptions exist for those with degrees taught in English.
A quick self-check before 1 December:
- Do you have a research master's or two-year MSc with a thesis, not just an MBA? - Can you draft a 5 to 10 page research proposal with a real method and schedule? - Are two referees ready who can speak to your research ability?
The deadline
The application deadline is 1 December 2026, and the expected start date is 16 August 2027. BI notes that applications must go through its electronic application platform, emailed or posted applications do not reach the department, and generative AI use in the proposal must be declared and cited. This is a single-position vacancy, so when it closes it closes.
How to apply
Assemble the package early: master's and bachelor's certificates with transcripts, a diploma supplement explaining your grading system, the 5 to 10 page research proposal outlining topic, method and schedule, a CV, at least two recommendation letters from professors or employers who know your research, your publication list if you have one, and TOEFL or IELTS documentation unless an exemption applies. Everything is uploaded through BI's job application portal from the position listing on the vacant positions page.
The position is listed on BI's vacancy portal:
https://www.bi.edu/about-bi/vacant-positions/
Materials checklist
- Master's degree certificate and transcript, plus the bachelor's equivalents - Diploma supplement explaining the grading system - Research proposal, 5 to 10 pages, with topic, method and timeline - CV - Two recommendation letters focused on research ability - Publication and conference list, if any - TOEFL or IELTS documentation unless exempted
Common mistakes to avoid
The most frequent is sending an MBA-only profile without research training; the department screens on method competence first. The second is a proposal that is a literature summary rather than a plan, with no defensible research question or timeline. The third is missing the AI declaration: BI now explicitly requires stating and citing any generative AI use in the proposal, and undeclared use is treated as an integrity problem rather than a formatting slip.
Tips to win
Write the proposal around a question the department's own recent publications are actively debating, and cite the work of the professors you would work under; selection committees read the reference list first. Keep the timeline realistic, because an over-packed three-year plan signals inexperience in a four-year programme. Secure recommendation letters that discuss your research process, not your personality. And apply well before the last day, since the electronic portal tends to be busiest in the final 48 hours and a failed upload is nobody's emergency but yours.
Understand what the teaching component means for your research plan before you commit. The 25 percent teaching duty is spread across the four years and is a structural part of the position, not a side arrangement you can negotiate away; candidates who arrive assuming a pure research schedule are the ones who struggle in year one. The upside is real, though: teaching experience in a department that publishes in the top marketing journals is exactly what hiring committees at business schools look for, and BI's doctoral graduates have gone on to placements at institutions across Europe, Asia and North America. Treat the teaching as part of the training rather than a tax on your time.
Finally, think about fit at the department level, not just the topic level. A single position in a single specialisation is a different proposition from an open call: the committee knows precisely what project profile it wants, and a technically strong proposal that ignores the department's empirical tradition reads as noise. Read the last two years of the department's publications, note whether the dominant method is experiments, econometrics or field data, and shape your method section to speak that language fluently. In a one-seat competition, demonstrating that you already work the way the department works is worth more than any polishing of the writing itself.
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If you want an OEAC advisor to pressure-test your research proposal before 1 December, send it in and we will go through it section by section.
Last updated: 13 November 2026
Source: https://www.bi.edu/about-bi/vacant-positions/
Always confirm the deadline and eligibility on the official page before you apply. Scholarship dates change between rounds, and this listing is a summary — the provider's own page is the authoritative source. OEAC Network lists scholarships for free and is not an agent for any university or funding body.
