The highest academic qualification a person can achieve in some European countries is known as habilitation. The candidate must hold a doctorate degree in order to achieve this level of qualification. After that, the candidate must conduct extensive independent research and write a thesis summarizing his or her findings. In some countries, habilitation is required before a professor can teach without supervision or supervise doctoral students. The process can take anywhere from four to ten years to complete.
The tasks that a scholar must complete to earn habilitation are similar to those that must be completed to earn a PhD or professorial tenure, but they are much more difficult. The candidate must act entirely independently, without the guidance that a PhD candidate would receive from a faculty supervisor or board. It’s crucial to have a track record of research and contributions to the field. A candidate for a habilitation in one of the sciences must publish dozens of research papers in peer-reviewed journals. If the candidate’s field of study is the humanities, he or she may be required to write and publish a book.
Spain, the Czech Republic, and Austria are among the European countries that provide habilitation. Russia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine are among the countries in the former Soviet Union that offer this type of certification. The requirements differ from one country to the next. In some countries, habilitation is used to demonstrate a prospective professor’s ability.
It is regarded as a certification for professors rather than an academic degree in some parts of Germany. The certificate verifies that the holder is qualified to teach without supervision at a university. The professor is given permission to teach a specific subject for the rest of his or her life after earning the certification. In this case, it’s comparable to obtaining tenure in the United States or the United Kingdom. In France, obtaining a habilitation allows a professor to supervise doctoral students’ research. Teaching ability is assessed alongside other requirements in both countries.
In Poland, habilitation is essentially a doctorate degree at the second level. After years of research and study in the field, the candidate must publish a dissertation to earn it. Although the law allows a professor with a first-level doctorate degree to teach at a university, teachers without the second-level degree are rarely hired.