From time to time I get asked about the opportunities to work or study in Granada, so I have gathered some pointers if you’re interested in that. This is biased towards ways to work in mathematics, just because I don’t know the situation in other disciplines as well.

PhD

There are two main doctoral programs in mathematics at the University of Granada: “Doctorado en Matemáticas” and “FisyMat”. In their websites you can find instructions on how to apply; registration is open to anyone holding a masters degree or equivalent, and does not include any funding (in fact, you have to pay a fee to register).

Most people try to obtain a scholarship to support themselves while completing their PhD studies, and these are not easy to find. The two main ones are:

• FPU scholarships (“Formación del Profesorado Universitario”). This is a yearly Spanish national call offered by the central government which fully funds four years of PhD studies. It is very competitive and requires a high average mark in your academic record. The 2021 page for these scholarships was here, but it often gets changed with every call.

• FPI scholarships (“Formación del Personal Investigador”). This is a similar call, but it is offered directly by some research groups at the university. It is not really an open call, since in practice most research groups talk to candidates well before the call is out. In order to find out about these you have to ask around personally in each department to find out whether there will be positions offered in a given year, and to agree with the directors of the research project on whether they would be interested in hiring you or not. This webpage has more detailed information on the FPU and FPI calls (in Spanish).

• There are other scholarships funded by the regional government or by the University of Granada; the best to find out about these is to ask directly the people you would like to work with, since they change often and again, often need you to talk to the people involved before the call. When we have anything available in our research group I will post about it on this page or on the frontpage.

Postdocs

Here’s a list of the main postdoctoral call you may apply for:

• Juan de la Cierva fellowships. These are very competitive yearly calls, mainly aimed at people with 2-4 years experience after their PhD. Here’s the link for the 2020 call; it changes every year. There are two types of Juan de la Cierva contracts: “Juan de la Cierva - formación” (for less experienced researchers) and “Juan de la Cierva - incorporación” (for more experienced people). It is common that people who obtain the “formación” contract later apply to the “incorporación” contract, so if you are applying for the first time “formación” is probably your best bet. These scholarships require the applicant to have been working away from the destination university for some time (two years, if I recall correctly, but this may change). When you apply for these scholarships you must agree beforehand with the research group where you will go to work, since they must provide an acceptation letter. The application process for the Juan de la Cierva is fairly straightforward, and does not require too much paperwork.

• Ramón y Cajal fellowships. These are more senior, five-year contracts which follow a similar philosophy to the Juan de la Cierva. This is the link to the 2020 call. They are also very competitive and have similar conditions, with the difference that you don’t need to agree with any research groups in advance if you are going to apply. The application is not associated to any particular department or group. If you are awarded the contract, then you will need to agree acceptation with the department that will hire you. In recent times this is usually not hard to do, since most departments are happy to obtain a new position, which they may not obtain otherwise. This may change though, and not all departments are like this! The paperwork required for Ramón y Cajal is also fairly straightforward.

• Marie-Curie fellowships. These are European-funded fellowships, very competitive, completely open, and which require a serious project (about 20 pages long) in order to apply. They also require the agreement of a host groups, and the host group also gets evaluated in the process and impacts your chances of obtaining the scholarship.

• Athenea fellowships. These are specific to the University of Granada, and only a few per year are awarded across all disciplines.

• Calls associated to specific research grants. As with PhD opportunities, some research groups may have specific funding for postdoctoral contracts. You have to ask directly the people involved to find out about this. When we have anything available in our research group I will post about it on this page or on the frontpage.