A report on Doctorate and Licentiate (degree)

In some institutions and educational systems, certain bachelor's degrees can only be taken as graduate or postgraduate educations after a first degree has been completed, although more commonly the successful completion of a bachelor's degree is a prerequisite for further courses such as a master's or a doctorate.

2) University students obtain an American equivalent bachelor's degree in their respective fields after completing four years of education, and a licenciatura licentiate degree completing one more year of studies (and meeting other requisites unique to each institution, it is common to write a dissertation on the professional field), this enables them to work as professionals in their chosen areas; for example, a Profesor en Enseñanza Secundaria ("Licentiate degree in secondary education") enables a person to work as a high school teacher. Currently, the trend is for universities not to offer a bachelor's degree and to offer instead a licentiate's or "ingeniero" degree after five years of education.

In Switzerland, the old Licence or Diplom (4 to 5 years in duration) is considered equivalent to the master's degree.

In Slovenia and Croatia, during the pre-Bologna process education, all academic degrees were awarded after a minimum of four years of university studies and a successful defence of a written thesis and are considered equivalent to the master's degree. After the completion of that first cycle of the pre-Bologna higher education, the students obtained professional degrees with the titles of Professor (abbreviation "prof.") for educational studies, Engineer (abbreviation "ing.") for technical studies, or Licensed professional of their field of expertise (abbreviation "dipl." with a reference to the profession) for other studies. The title of Magister Scientiae (abbreviation "mr. sc.") was awarded to students who completed a postgraduate university programme (and therefore qualified for a doctorate programme), while the title of Scientiae Doctor (abbreviation "dr. sc.") was awarded to students who completed a postgraduate doctoral programme. Slovenia is a full member of the Bologna Process since 1999 and Croatia since 2001.

These institutions commonly offer degrees at various levels, usually including undergraduate degrees, master's, and doctorates, often alongside other academic certificates and professional degrees.

Since the Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region in 1997 and the Bologna declaration in 1999, higher education systems in Europe are being harmonised through the Bologna process, based on a three-cycle hierarchy of degrees: Bachelor's/Licence – Master's – Doctorate, with the later addition of a "short cycle (within the first cycle)" to cover sub-bachelor's qualifications.

In some contexts, the word "thesis" or a cognate is used for part of a bachelor's or master's course, while "dissertation" is normally applied to a doctorate.

Correspondingly to the academic degree, the last phase of an academic thesis is called in Spanish a defensa de grado, defensa magistral or defensa doctoral in cases in which the university candidate is finalizing their licentiate, master's, or PhD program, respectively.

The specific requirements to earn a PhD degree vary considerably according to the country, institution, and time period, from entry-level research degrees to higher doctorates.

Besides these degrees, there was the licentiate.

Third cycle (doctoral degree): There is no concrete ECTS range, since the disciplines vary in length and comprehensiveness. However, some countries have minimum credit weight requirements on doctoral degrees. Those country-level requirements typically require 120-420 ECTS of study.

Only medicine and dentistry retain their non-standard degree structure, where the Licentiate (higher than a master's degree, but less extensive than Doctor of Medicine or Dentistry degrees) is the basic degree.

Some students will continue to do research under the supervision of a professor, which eventually allows them to obtain the title of doctor.

(which stems from licentiaat) is used for those who have finished a masters' degree, but it is rarely used.