Hi, Jeremy,
The degree above a PhD is known as the higher doctorate. These are such degrees as DSc, DLitt, or DSocSci. The degree may be earned or awarded honoris causa. When earned, it is generally earned well after one has completed the PhD. Generally, one submits a body of significant research work demonstrated through high level publications assembled over an extended period. Some universities only award the higher doctorate to scholars that have already earned a first doctorate at that institution. Others also make the award to members of their own staff that have applied for the degree or been nominated for the degree by their faculty. When the higher doctorate is awarded honoris causa, it is generally awarded for an extended body or work or an extended contribution to a field of sufficient quality to earn the higher doctorate the ordinary way.
The old Dr.Philos. in Nordic universities was generally a more extensive degree than the German PhD, but not necessarily more extensive than the North American PhD at top universities. The award process was a minor inquisition -- the candidate had to give two extensive doctoral lectures on topics specific by the committee taken from the dissertation. Following these lectures, there was a formal opposition in which opponents debated the candidate. The process could take a day. I've been to one of the day-long affairs. I've heard that the process could sometimes take two days, though this may be the kind of apocryphal story that Norwegians enjoyed telling an American who had little more than a mere PhD. Over the past decade, I served as opponent on PhD awards in design at the University of Gothenburg, philosophy and management at Copenhagen Business School, and psychology at University of Aarhus, and I found the process fairly simple and friendly. It was basically a lecture or comments, a mild debate, and a report on the opponents' findings. The notion of the "opposition debate" seems to have shifted from a major debate to something more like a hybrid of the British examination and the Australian report on the thesis. This may, of course, differ by discipline, nation, and even university.
With the introduction of the PhD, most Nordic universities seem to have stopped awarding the older Dr.Philos. Such degree as Dr.Theol. or Dr.Tech. still exist, but these are not higher doctorates -- they are the doctorates of specific fields such as theology or technology. Some universities continue to award the licensiate, a degree half-way between the master's and the doctorate. The Lic. is a research degree requiring a thesis and usually a defense. The other traditions of the ancient degree structure seem to have vanished with the introduction of the PhD, and the advent of the Bologna system with the normed 3+2+3 BA-MA-PhD structure seems to have killed the licensiate in most places.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean
Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia
Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
I don't think there will be a 'new degree' there is in some countries a degree above the ph.d. The existence of that degree in Australia granted sort of honorarily, and in the Nordic countries after completing other work after the dissertations.
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