France
The écoles doctorales ("Doctoral Schools") are educational structures similar in focus to graduate schools, but restricted at PhD level. These schools have the responsibilities of providing students with a structured doctoral training in a disciplinary field. The field of the school is related to the strength of the university : while some have two or three schools (typically "Arts and Humanities" and "Natural and Technological Sciences"), others have more specialized schools (History, Aeronautics, etc.).
Admission to a doctoral program requires a master's degree, both research-oriented and disciplinary focused. High marks are required (typically a très bien honour, equating a cum laude), but the acceptance is linked to a decision of the School Academical Board.
A large share of the funding offered to junior researchers is channeled through the école doctorale, mainly in the shape of three-years "Doctoral Fellowships" (contrats doctoraux). These fellowships are awarded after submitting a biographical information, undergraduate and graduate transcripts where applicable, letters of recommendation, and research proposal, then an oral examination by an Academical Committee.
Read more about this topic: Graduate School
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The anarchy, assassination, and sacrilege by which the Kingdom of France has been disgraced, desolated, and polluted for some years past cannot but have excited the strongest emotions of horror in every virtuous Briton. But within these days our hearts have been pierced by the recital of proceedings in that country more brutal than any recorded in the annals of the world.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)