Objective

The general objective of the Doctoral seminar is to familiarize you with the scientific method and the writing of scientific articles. It also intends to accompany you in finding your way while taking your first steps in the academic world.

More specifically, this course aims to develop your doctoral student’s skills in structuring, positioning, and presenting your doctoral thesis project within the research community. This involves among others structuring and planning your research work, designing your research questions, adopting relevant theoretical and methodological tools, identifying meaningful contributions, and designing relevant publication strategies.

• The course intends to improve your ability to:
• structure and plan your doctoral project
• position your project within your research community
• formulate a clear research question
• draft an appealing literature review
• make theoretical and methodological choices
• present and discuss research findings
• understand how to identify research contributions
• design relevant publication and diffusion strategies
• develop your critical thinking
• make explicit and justify your choices
• strengthen your writing and presentation capacity

Course material

The seminar is based on a broad variety of material, among others on the following book, which participants can but do not need to acquire:

Saunders, M. N. K., Thornhill, A., & Lewis, P. (2018), Research Methods for Business Students, Harlow: Pearson.

Compulsory readings are posted on Lola, the online platform of HEC Liège, by session and identified as such. Additional resources are either posted or referred to on Lola.

Expectations and evaluation

The seminar takes place in English. Students are expected to have a good command of English to participate. The assignments can be written in English or in French.

See Full Syllabus here

Planned learning activities and teaching (UPDATED: 19 September, 2025)

.