Doctor of Science - The Americas - United States

United States

In the United States, the formally recognized traditional Doctor of Science is an academic research doctoral degree awarded by research universities. The academic research Sc.D. (or D.Sc.) is considered by both the United States Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to be equivalent to the more commonly awarded Ph.D.

The first North American Sc.D. was inaugurated by Harvard University in 1872, when graduate studies first began at Harvard, and where the Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees were introduced in the same year. The Doctor of Science research degree is earned with the formal dissertation defense and approval of a committee on the basis of original research and publications, and it is awarded predominantly in doctoral-level science programs, such as engineering, medical and health sciences, and health economics.

Although rarer than the Doctor of Philosophy, the Doctor of Science research degree has been awarded by institutions such as Columbia University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Robert Morris University and Tulane University.

A few university doctoral research programs offer both the Sc.D. and Ph.D. degrees in the same academic field, such as Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with identical requirements for obtaining either. Currently, research programs that offer the formal research Sc.D. but not the Ph.D. degree for a given field include several doctoral programs at Harvard University, Boston University, Capitol College, and Dakota State University.

There are programs where the Sc.D. and Ph.D. have different degree requirements, though the two degrees are officially considered equivalent. The Engineering school at Washington University in St. Louis, for example, requires four graduate courses in the D.Sc. program not required for the Ph.D. degree, while the Ph.D requires teaching assistance services. The Johns Hopkins University also offers both Ph.D. and Sc.D. in certain programs, with only minor differences in university administration of the degrees. In some institutions, the Sc.D. has been converted to the Ph.D. For instance, the doctoral degree in biostatistics at Harvard recently converted from Sc.D. to Ph.D., even though the doctoral degree structure and requirements have remained identical.

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