Luxembourg School of Business has opened the Joint KUL–LSB PhD in Business Administration, in partnership with KU Leuven.
The programme was launched at a ceremony in Luxembourg, at which Professor Joel Mokyr — laureate of the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences — lectured on the origins of sustained growth and accepted the role of Patron.
The doctorate is conferred by KU Leuven — founded in 1425, and one of Europe’s leading research universities — under its own degree-granting authority, with LSB as host and co-supervising institution.
The pairing is deliberate. KU Leuven brings doctoral rigour and scholarly authority. LSB brings three things: Luxembourg, with its financial centre, EU institutions, cross-border labour market and dense family-business economy — the settings in which the research questions arise; senior faculty drawn from its international academic network; and a support system built to carry candidates through a demanding programme alongside their careers.
The structure is itself an innovation. In place of the single supervisor of the traditional doctorate, each candidate works with a KU Leuven promotor, an LSB co-supervisor and a non-academic mentor who also holds a doctorate. An industry committee accompanies the research, testing its relevance and its practical significance. Academic authority remains where it belongs — with the promotor and the jury.
The programme is designed for accomplished professionals who want to advance the frontier of their field without stepping away from the work that put them there. Four years, in English, compatible with full-time employment, culminating in four articles of publishable quality defended before a jury.
The first cohort will admit 3 candidates.
Applications are open.
