Requirements
The detailed requirements for award of a Ph.D. degree vary throughout the world and even from school to school. It is usually required for the student to hold an Honours degree or a Master's Degree with high academic standing, in order to be considered for a PhD programme. In some schools in the US, Canada and Denmark, for example, many universities require coursework in addition to research for Ph.D. degrees. In other countries (such as the UK) there is generally no such condition. Some individual universities or departments specify additional requirements for students not already in possession of a bachelor's degree or equivalent or higher.
A candidate must submit a project or thesis or dissertation often consisting of a body of original academic research, which is in principle worthy of publication in a peer-reviewed context. In many countries a candidate must defend this work before a panel of expert examiners appointed by the university; in other countries, the dissertation is examined by a panel of expert examiners who stipulate whether the dissertation is in principle passable and the issues that need to be addressed before the dissertation can be passed.
Some universities in the non-English-speaking world have begun adopting similar standards to those of the Anglophone PhD degree for their research doctorates (see the Bologna process).
A Ph.D. student or candidate (abbreviated to Ph.D.c) is conventionally required to study on campus under close supervision. With the popularity of distance education and e-learning technologies, some universities now accept students enrolled into a distance education part-time mode.
In a "sandwich Ph.D." program, Ph.D. candidates do not spend their entire study period at the same university. Instead, the Ph.D. candidates spend the first and last periods of the program at their home universities, and in between conduct research at another institution or field research. Occasionally a "sandwich Ph.D." will be awarded by two universities.
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