Doctoral education: understanding the framework

Doctoral education in France operates within a demanding framework. Its goal: to guarantee future doctors high-quality training, governed by clear, shared rules, and to award degrees recognized both in France and internationally.

Everything you need to know about

National framework, accreditation and evaluation

The doctorate is the highest national degree in higher education, often summed up by the phrase “the highest national degree recognised internationally”. Behind this simple phrase lies a rigorous system, designed to guarantee both the quality of training and the recognition of the degrees awarded.

Degree levels and qualifications

The doctorate is the final level of the European higher education system, structured around the three LMD degree levels (Licence-Master-Doctorate). Each level corresponds to a specific, validated stage of training.

A national degree, governed by four legal texts

Unlike an institution-specific degree, a national degree is defined by official texts: laws or ministerial decrees. The doctorate is therefore governed by four key texts:

Accreditation: who can award the doctorate?

The ministry responsible for higher education accredits institutions for a fixed period, allowing them to organise doctoral training and award the doctoral degree.

This training is organised within doctoral schools, research laboratories and other structures, doctoral colleges, graduate research schools.

Accreditation comes with other obligations: producing an annual report on the career outcomes of doctorate holders for up to five years after their defence, or appointing research integrity officers.

Evaluation: a periodic quality check

Accreditation is based on a periodic national evaluation of doctoral training and host research laboratories, renewed every five years. This evaluation follows strict European principles: independence, peer review, objectivity, transparency.

Why it matters: this process ensures the mutual recognition of degrees between countries that signed the Bologna treaty and strengthens the international standing of the French doctorate.

The reference documents used for these evaluations:

For full transparency, the evaluation reports for (Opens a new window) doctoral training and (Opens a new window) host laboratories are made public.

Organisation: doctoral schools, doctoral colleges and other structures

Accredited institutions and their doctoral schools

Doctoral training is organised within doctoral schools, run under the responsibility of institutions accredited to award the doctorate. These schools draw on research laboratories where doctoral students carry out all or part of their work; a single laboratory may be affiliated with several doctoral schools.

There are three types of doctoral schools:

  • Discipline-based: a doctoral school in physics, for instance, oversees future doctorate holders in that discipline within the accredited institution.
  • Multidisciplinary: a doctoral school in physics and chemistry welcomes doctoral students from both fields.
  • Theme-based: these bring together doctoral students whose research addresses cross-cutting, often interdisciplinary issues. A doctoral school in oncology, for example, may bring together researchers in biology, physics, chemistry, sociology or public health, working on varied aspects (basic research, clinical research, prevention, screening technologies). Doctoral students gain an overall view of their field as a result.

Several institutions may be jointly accredited for the same doctoral school. This makes it possible to pool resources and offer specialised training in highly specific disciplines, such as astrophysics or sport and human movement sciences, by bringing together doctoral students from different institutions.

Doctoral colleges

On a single site, doctoral schools, whether discipline-based, multidisciplinary or theme-based, are often grouped together within a doctoral college. Set up by one or more institutions, it coordinates the site's doctoral policy, raises its profile and pools the activities of the doctoral schools. Some of the doctoral schools' regulatory duties may then be transferred to it.

Graduate Schools

Other structures, such as Graduate Schools, coordinate Master's- and doctoral-level training around a specific field or theme.

They often involve socio-economic partners, who express research needs or employ Master's and doctoral graduates.

They offer clear pathways through to the doctorate, easy to understand for students from the European system (Licence-Master-Doctorate) as well as those from countries using the Bachelor's-PhD model

The quality assurance system

The doctorate can be obtained through different routes: initial training, continuing education, recognition of prior experience, or international joint supervision of a thesis. Pathways vary, but the requirements for obtaining the degree remain the same.

Its validation differs, however, from that of other degrees: the doctorate requires the creation of new knowledge and the presentation of original scientific work. This distinctive feature calls for a tailored composition of defence panels and specific safeguard measures.

These safeguards rest on three pillars: the quality of those vouching for the thesis and the skills of doctorate holders, the independence of the panel, and the transparency of the validation process.

Transparency

The PhD defence is public and must be announced at least two weeks in advance. The first names, surnames and roles of all those vouching for the quality and originality of the work are made public and permanently associated with the thesis on the national portal (Opens a new window) theses.fr.

The names of doctorate holders are also public. Since 2016, theses have been accessible online or in libraries (subject to an embargo or a period of confidentiality): this allows anyone to check the basis on which the degree was awarded. In the event of fraud, even years after the defence, the degree can be withdrawn.

Those vouching for the thesis

The validation process begins with the thesis supervisor, accredited to supervise research, who proposes that the defence go ahead.

Two external examiners, also accredited to supervise research, review the work, assess the thesis and produce reports on it. The head of the institution relies on these reports to authorise the defence, after consulting the director of the doctoral school (a full professor or equivalent).

Lastly, a panel of 4 to 8 members, at least half of whom are full professors or equivalent, is appointed by the head of the institution after consulting the doctoral school. At the end of the defence and the discussion with the candidate, the panel decides whether to award the degree. Its members are chosen for their scientific or professional expertise in the relevant field.

Independence of the panel

Since 2016, the thesis supervisor has not taken part in the panel's deliberations. Since 2022, this exclusion has extended to everyone who contributed to supervising the thesis.

Both examiners must be external to the doctoral student's laboratory, doctoral school and institution. At least half of the panel members must also be external.

Full professors or equivalent, who make up at least half of the panel, are also subject to (Opens a new window) general and (Opens a new window) ethical obligations: to avoid any conflict of interest and any situation likely to influence their judgement, in order to guarantee the independence, impartiality and objectivity of their assessment.

Lastly, the degree is awarded on the panel's binding decision — in other words, “the panel has the final say”.

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