Phd application procedure in European universities, specifically in Scandinavia and the Netherlands For Phd application in Europe, we often directly apply to the interested group, a little bit like application to a job. I would like to know in general, will they send you a email if they reject you? or only the successful candidate will receive email? (Just like job application) How long does it take for their consideration? I would like to hear some of the experience or general cases because I cannot find enough information on this. (No reply from HR etc)
I have some issues with the formulation of this question; first of there is a contradiction between the question title and the first sentence. The OP first asks for the application procedure in the question title, then goes on to describe it in the first sentence as if to answer his/her own question...
Then there is the issue of seeing Europe as one big consistent body. Anyone who has dealt with academic bureaucracy in Europe would likely laugh at the notion. I would personally give the ECTS system as a beautiful example of how little collaboration and consistency there is in higher education system in Europe.

According to the Swedish &quot;Law of Higher Education&quot; (Högskoleförordningen) Ch. 12 par 2 employment on a PhD position can not be appealed by other applicants. Text in &quot;[]&quot; is a attempt to translate the Swedish text.

12 kap. Överklagande [Appeal]
...
2 § Till Överklagandenämnden för högskolan får följande beslut av en högskola överklagas: [The following decisions made at a University/College may be appealed to the appeals board]

beslut om anställning vid en högskola, med undantag av anställning som doktorand, [Decisions on employment ata university/college, with the exception of PhD positions]


Since this is the law that dictates higher education in Sweden it matters not whether the University(/College) is state or private.

I have a couple of additions and clarifications:

there are two schools that are not state-owned, Chalmers University and Jönköping Business School. These schools have their own regulations which I suspect is very similar to all the other universities but slight differences might exist.

the statement that you apply directly to research groups (i.e. group leaders) is simply not true. It is praxis (and actually good manners) to get in contact with the group leader prior to application but it is in no way compulsory, neither does it have any formal meaning.

Like all other state-owned organisations, the universities in Sweden have to have a transparent recruitment process that is open for general public. Universities have HR departments and centralised recruitment applications (typically on the university homepage) where positions (for instance PhD or post-doc positions) are posted.

At Lund University (and I am pretty confident this applies to other major universities in Sweden) applications are then collected and directed to the person responsible for recruitment of that particular position in question (often the group leader) who then does an assessment of the applicants based on the job description and qualifications. If necessary one or more steps of filtering is done, and top N candidates are typically invited to some sort of interview (in person or via skype).

Once a single candidate is chosen out of all applicants the group leader then needs to write a formal letter where the decision is motivated; i.e. why was the chosen applicant better than the other ones.

The applicants are then informed whether they are accepted or not.

I cannot swear for all Danish universities, but I know that DTU has a similar procedure to the one described possibly differing in, if anything, being even more formal and controlled.