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Habilitation is the highest academic degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Romania and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching, and further education, which usually includes a dissertation.
The degree, sometimes abbreviated Dr. habil. (Doctor habilitatus), dr hab. (doktor habilitowany), or D.Sc. ( Doctor of Sciences in Russia and some CIS countries), is often a qualification for full professorship in those countries. In German-speaking countries it allows the degree holder to bear the title PD (for Privatdozent). In a number of countries there exists an academic post of docent, appointment to which often requires such a qualification. The degree conferral is usually accompanied by a public oral defence event (a lecture or a colloquium) with one or more opponents. The habilitation thesis is intended to demonstrate that the author has mastered their field in its entirety. For this reason, it is usually written on a topic that is very different from the subject of the doctoral dissertation. Unlike doctoral theses, which must be published by law in Germany, many habilitation theses remain unpublished.
Habilitation is usually awarded 5–15 years after a PhD degree or its equivalent. Achieving this academic degree does not automatically give the scientist a paid position, though many people who apply for the degree already have steady university employment.
Since the early 21st century, the habilitation is no longer mandatory for appointment to a professorship in Germany. Since then, there have been major differences between the various disciplines. While the habilitation remains common in most humanities and in medical research, it has become the exception in many natural sciences.
The level of scholarship of a habilitation is considerably higher than for a doctoral dissertation in the same academic tradition in terms of quality and quantity, and must be accomplished independently, without direction or guidance of a faculty supervisor. In the , publication of numerous (sometimes ten or more) research articles is required during the habilitation period of about four to ten years. In the humanities, a major book publication may be a prerequisite for defense.
It is possible to get a professorship without habilitation, if the search committee attests the candidate to have qualifications equaling those of a habilitation and the higher-ranking bodies (the university's senate and the country's ministry of education) approve. However, while some subjects make liberal use of this (e.g., the natural sciences in order to employ candidates from countries with different systems and the arts to employ active artists), in other subjects it is rarely done.
The habilitation is awarded after a public lecture, to be held after the thesis has been accepted, and after which the venia legendi (Latin: 'permission to read', i.e., to lecture) is bestowed. In some areas, such as law, philosophy, theology and sociology, the venia, and thus the habilitation, is given only for certain sub-fields (such as criminal law, civil law, or philosophy of science, practical philosophy, etc.); in others, for the entire field.
Although disciplines and countries vary in the typical number of years for obtaining habilitation after getting a doctorate, it usually takes longer than for the American academic tenure. For example, in Poland until 2018, the statutory time for getting a habilitation (traditionally, although not obligatorily, relying on a book publication) is eight years. Theoretically, if an assistant professor does not succeed in obtaining habilitation in this time, they should be moved to a position of a lecturer, with a much higher teaching load and no research obligations, or even be dismissed. In practice, however, on many occasions schools extend the deadlines for habilitation for most scholars if they do not make it in time, and there is evidence that they are able to finish it in the near future.
While the habilitation ensures the rights of the independent research and the supervision, it is on behalf of the statute of the universities to give those rights also to, e.g., associate professors without habilitation. Currently the major Austrian universities do that only for master's level students, but not for PhD programs.
The award of the French habilitation is a general requirement for being the main supervisor of PhD students and to be eligible for full professor positions. The official eligibility named qualification is granted by the French italic=no (CNU). Members of Directeur de Recherche corps who are assimilated to full professors by the CNU do not require the French habilitation to supervise PhD students. Depending on the field, the French habilitation requires consistent research from five to ten years after appointment as an associate professor (maître de conférences), a substantial amount of significant publications, the supervision of at least one PhD student from start to graduation, and/or a successful track record securing extramural funding as a principal investigator, as well as a sound, ambitious, and feasible five-year research project. Outstanding postdoctoral researchers who are not yet appointed to a university could also obtain the habilitation if they meet the requirements. The French habilitation committee is constituted by a majority of external and sometimes foreign referees. The French habilitation entitles associate professors (maîtres de conférences) to apply for full professor positions (professeur des universités).
A typical procedure after completing the habilitation is that the successful researcher officially receives the so-called Venia legendi (Latin for "permission for lecturing") for a specific academic subject at universities (sometimes also referred to as Venia docendi, Latin for "right of teaching"). Someone in possession of the Venia legendi but not a professorship has the right to carry the title Privatdozent (for men) or Privatdozentin (for women), abbreviated PD or Priv.-Doz. The status as a PD requires doing some (generally unpaid) teaching in order to keep the title (Titellehre or titular teaching).
The successful candidate will then receive their ASN habilitation as associate or full professor (or, in some instances, for both) and may thus apply for those vacancies in Italian universities.
The ASN habilitation also allows to compete for three-year tenure-track assistant professorship positions (which were once called RTDb in the Italian system, for ricercatore a tempo determinato di tipo b, and now are labeled as RTT, "ricercatore in tenure-track"). At the end of the three-year contract the assistant professor must have a valid ASN habilitation in order to become a permanent associate professor; otherwise, he or she is permanently laid off. To prevent this (which may be disastrous to already undermanned Italian departments), it is common practice to award RTDb positions to people already habilitated as associate or full professors, which is in practical contrast with the spirit of the Gelmini-reform.
If an ASN habilitation application fails, the candidate can apply again, but only after a 12-month hiatus.
The ASN habilitation was initially valid for four years only, but this validity term was extended many times. It was first extended to six years, then 9 years, then 11 years (2023). Currently (2025), due to extreme scarcity of tenure track positions in Italy, the ASN habilitation validity has been increased to 12 years by yet another government decree in order not to let the first awarded habilitations expire (with consequent protests and possible lawsuits).
In other cases, especially in the case of health professions or childcare professionals, not protected by a professional nature, the degree itself is a qualifying title.
Finally, some habilitations, since their activities cannot be done autonomously, need to be hired in a suitable structure in order to effectively carry out the profession in question. This is for example the case of the education sector: once the qualifying examination has been passed, a public competition must be won for recruitment in an upper or lower secondary school.
Legally, they are equivalent and are required for a professor (agregação) or a researcher (habilitação) to reach the top of their specific careers (full professor or coordinator researcher). Both degrees aim to evaluate if the candidate has achieved significant outputs in terms of scientific activity, including activities in postgraduation supervision.
The process to obtain any of the degrees is very similar, with minor changes. Any PhD holder can submit a habilitation thesis to obtain the degree. For agregação, the thesis is composed by a detailed CV of the achievements obtained after concluding the PhD, a detailed report of an academic course taught at the university (or a proposed course to be taught), and the summary of a lesson to be given. For habilitação, the academic course report is replaced by a research proposal or a proposal for advanced PhD studies.
After the candidate submits the habilitation thesis, a jury composed of five to nine full professors or coordinator researchers first evaluates the submitted documents; the majority needs to approve the candidate's request. If approved, the candidate then needs to defend their thesis in a two-day public defense. The public defense lasts for two hours each day. On the first day, the curriculum of the candidate is discussed (for both degrees) and in the case of agregação, the candidate also needs to present the academic course selected. On the second day, the candidate needs to present a lecture ( agregação) or a proposal of a research project ( habilitação).
Furthermore, the position or title of an associate professor (or higher) at a European Union–based university is systematically translated into or compared to titles such as Universitätsprofessor ( W2) (Germany), førsteamanuensis (Norway), or Doktor hab. (Poland) by institutions such as the European Commission Directorate-General for Research, European Commission Directorate-General for Research on Seniority Grades of Academic Staff, pp. 129 and 133ff. Accessed 26 September 2017. and therefore usually implies the holder of such title has a degree equivalent to habilitation.
Many, especially researchers in the , as well as young researchers, have long demanded the abandonment of the habilitation as they think it to be an unnecessary and time-consuming obstacle in an academic career, contributing to the brain drain of talented young researchers who think their chances of getting a professorship at a reasonable age to be better abroad and hence move, for example, to the UK or the USA. Many feel overly dependent on their supervising principal investigators (the professor heading the research group) since superiors have power to delay the process of completing the habilitation. A further problem comes with funding support for those who wish to pursue a habilitation, where older candidates often feel discriminated against, for example under the DFG's Emmy-Noether programme. Furthermore, internal "soft" money might only be budgeted to pay for younger postdoctoral scientists. Because of the need to chase short-term research contracts, many researchers in the natural sciences apply for more transparent career development opportunities in other countries. In summary, a peer-reviewed demonstration of a successful academic development and an international outlook is considered more than compensation for an habilitation where there is evidence of grant applications, well-cited publications, a network of collaborators, lecturing and organisational experience, and experience of having worked and published abroad.
On the other hand, amongst many senior researchers, especially in medicine, the humanities and the , the habilitation wasand still isregarded as a valuable instrument of quality control before giving somebody a tenured position for life.
Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, three states with conservative governments, filed suit at the German Constitutional Court against the new law replacing the habilitation with the junior professor. The Court concurred with their argument that the Bundestag (the federal parliament) cannot pass such a law, because the German constitution explicitly states that affairs of education are the sole responsibility of the states and declared the law to be invalid in June 2004. In reaction, a new federal law was passed, giving the states more freedom regarding habilitations and junior professors. The junior professor has since been legally established in all states, but it is still possible—and encouraged—for an academic career in many subjects in Germany to pursue a habilitation.
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