EBS Doctoral Programme kicks-off academic year 2026/27

Estonian Business School welcomed its new doctoral candidates on 30 September at a kick-off that marked a new phase for the Doctoral Programme. It was the first full academic year under Renato Sydler, who became Head of the Programme in March, and the first with a revised curriculum offering two specialisations: Management and Entrepreneurship.

“As this was my first start of an academic year as Head of the Doctoral Programme, it was a good moment to set the direction together,” Renato said.

The two doctoral specialisations give candidates clearer pathways. The Management specialisation focuses on original, theoretically grounded contributions to management, organisational and human behaviour scholarship while the Entrepreneurship specialisation lets candidates examine entrepreneurial phenomena while bridging the gap between theory and practice. Both share a core of theory, research methods and doctoral research design, among many other things, so candidates can ask different questions and work with different kinds of evidence while still meeting common academic standards.

The kick-off also covered changes to several programme processes and clarified who is responsible for what. As is known, doctoral research is uncertain by nature. A promising question may need narrowing, evidence may point somewhere unexpected, an argument can change considerably before it becomes a dissertation, methodology might change significantly along the way which then affects completion time. The administrative side should not add additional complications. Candidates need to know how their progress will be evaluated, what the programme requires and what they can expect from supervision.

“We want to raise the quality of the whole programme: lecturing, supervision and the students’ research output,” Renato said. “That only works if expectations are clear and openly shared.”

Each candidate begins by drawing up an individual study plan with their supervisors, which ties the research project to the programme’s wider requirements. The plan provides structure, but its value depends on the conversations that follow, including how often progress is discussed and assessed, how feedback is given and how difficulties are managed.

Those conversations extend beyond the supervisory relationship. Doctoral researchers sharpen their work by presenting unfinished ideas, taking criticism and learning from colleagues at other stages of the process. Infact, that is one of the reasons the kick-off brought new and continuing candidates together with supervisors and other members of the EBS research community. Renato described the community as the basis for “exchange, peer support and a sense of belonging.” Newcomers meet people who have already navigated the early stages, and continuing candidates help shape the environment the next cohort will grow into.

EBS warmly welcomes its new doctoral candidates and looks forward to the research and collaborations the year will bring!