International cotutella agreement
Joint international supervision of doctoral theses under an international cotutella agreement : A framework to encourage the mobility of doctoral researchers, develop international scientific cooperation and strengthen the international dimension of doctoral schools.
The joint PhD procedure enables a French or foreign doctoral student to earn a French doctorate and the foreign equivalent simultaneously, with a single thesis defence.
Steps to setting up a joint PhD agreement
International joint supervision of PhD candidates goes beyond international cooperation between researchers. It is an institutional partnership between two institutions accredited to award doctorates, one in France and the other abroad, in view of jointly awarding the doctoral degree.
- Requests to set up a joint PhD should be made to the Doctoral College, which centralizes the information to be transmitted to Université Paris-Saclay.
- Three consecutive enrolments as a PhD student at each of the institutions party to the agreement are required to obtain a joint degree. The PhD student must enrol from his or her first year of doctoral study at both partner institutions.
- Completion of a joint PhD leads to the award of two degrees (one in France and one abroad) following collaboration between two supervisors in two research units.