Bachelor's, Master's, Doctorate

The doctorate is a post-graduate diploma requiring 8 years of study after the baccalauréat. It is prepared within a doctoral school, after obtaining a diploma conferring the grade of Master or equivalent.

The doctorate is training in research through research, and as such represents professional research experience. It leads to the production of new knowledge.

Based on a thesis topic, doctoral students carry out research under the supervision of one or more thesis supervisors. Doctoral training takes place within research units or teams whose quality is recognized by periodic national evaluation. The thesis, which represents the individual or collective realization of original scientific work, is defended before a jury and awarded the grade of doctor.

The doctorate is a training program with an international outlook. The new regulations encourage international openness, as well as co-tutored theses. These are carried out within the framework of an agreement between the institutions involved, adapting national regulations where necessary to the requirements of international cooperation.

The Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches (HDR) is the highest diploma in French higher education and enables :

• recognition of scientific level,
• recognition of the ability to supervise young researchers
• access to the body of university professors in most disciplines.

HDR candidates must provide proof of :

• a doctoral degree or
• a doctor's diploma entitling the holder to practice medicine, oncology, pharmacy or veterinary medicine, and a research master's degree, or
• a diploma, work or experience equivalent to a doctorate. This latter provision applies in particular to holders of a post-graduate doctorate or a doctor of engineering diploma supplemented by other work or full-time teaching and research activity of at least five years' duration.