A higher tier of research doctorates may be awarded on the basis of a formally

submitted portfolio of published research of a particularly high standard. In

Poland, that standard was a discovery or innovative element beyond the use of
scientific methods. Examples include the Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) and Doctor of
Letters (D.Litt.) degrees found in the UK, Ireland and some Commonwealth
countries, and the traditional doctorates in Scandinavia.

The cole Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin of the Universit catholique de Louvain, for

instance, has offered the opportunity for students who had already earned a
doctorate to earn the degree of Matre Agreg (Magister Aggregatus).[39]

The habilitation teaching qualification (facultas docendi or "faculty to teach")

under a university procedure with a thesis and an exam is commonly regarded as
belonging to this category in Germany, Austria, France, Liechtenstein,
Switzerland, Poland, etc. The degree developed in Germany in the 19th century
"when holding a doctorate seemed no longer sufficient to guarantee a proficient
transfer of knowledge to the next generation."[40] The habilitation results in an
award of a formal "Dr. habil." degree or the holder of the degree may add "habil."
to his research doctorate such as "Dr. phil. habil." or "Dr. rer. nat. habil." In some
European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, the degree is
insufficient to have teaching duties without professor supervision (or to teach
and supervise Ph.D. students independently) without an additional
instructor/teaching certificate/license, such as Privatdozent. In many countries of
Central and Eastern Europe, the degree gives the venia legendi, Latin for
"permission for lecturing," or the ius docendi, "right of teaching" a specific
academic subject at universities for a lifetime. The French academic system used
to have a higher doctorate, called "State doctorate" (doctorat d'tat), but it was
superseded by the habilitation (Habilitation diriger des recherches,
"accreditation to supervise research", abbreviated HDR) in 1984.

Higher doctorates are often also awarded honoris causa when a university wishes
to formally recognize an individual's achievements and contributions to a
particular field.

Doctor of Commerce and Doctor of Medicine can also be awarded at the higher
doctorate level.

Professional doctorate[edit]
See also: Professional degree and List of doctoral degrees in the US
Depending on the country, professional doctorates may either be research
degrees at the same level as PhDs or professional degrees with little or no
research content. Many professional doctorates are named "Doctor of [subject
name] and abbreviated using the form "D[subject abbreviation]" or "[subject
abbreviation]D",[24] or may use the more generic titles "Professional Doctorate",
abbreviated "ProfDoc" or "DProf",[24] "Doctor of Professional Studies" (DPS)[41]
or "Doctor of Professional Practice" (DPP).[42][43]

In the US, professional doctorates (formally "doctor's degree professional

practice" in government classifications) are degrees that require a minimum of
six years of university-level study (including any pre-professional bachelor's or
associate degree) and meet the academic requirements for professional
licensure. Unlike research doctorates ("doctor's degree research/scholarship"),
they do not require a dissertation or study beyond master's level. There is also a
category of "doctor's degree other" for doctorates that do not fall into either
research or professional categories. All of these are considered doctoral degrees.
[44]

In contrast to the US, many countries reserve the term "doctorate" for research
degrees and if, as in Canada and Australia, professional degrees bear the name
"Doctor of ", etc., it is made clear that these are not doctorates.[45][46]

In the UK and Ireland, all doctorates are third cycle qualifications in the Bologna
Process, comparable to US research doctorates. Although all doctorates are
research degrees, professional doctorates normally include taught components
while the name PhD/DPhil is normally used for doctorates purely by thesis.
Professional and practice-based doctorates such as the EdD, DClinPsy, MD, DBA
and EngD are full doctorates at the same level as the PhD in the national
qualifications frameworks; they are not first professional degrees but are "often
post-experience qualifications".[22][24][28][47] In 2009 there were 308
professional doctorate programs in the UK, up from 109 in 1998, with the most
popular being the EdD (38 institutions), DBA (33), EngD/DEng (22), MD/DM (21),
and DClinPsy/DClinPsych/ClinPsyD (17).[48] Similarly in Australia, the term
"professional doctorate" is sometimes applied to the Scientiae Juridicae Doctor
(SJD),[49][50] which, like the UK professional doctorates, is a research degree.
[51][52]

Honorary[edit]
Main article: Honorary degree
When a university wishes to formally recognize an individual's contributions to a
particular field or philanthropic efforts, it may choose to grant a doctoral degree
honoris causa (i.e. "for the sake of the honor"), waiving the usual requirements
for granting the degree.[53][54] Some universities do not award honorary
degrees, for example, Cornell University,[55] the University of Virginia,[56] the
California Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[57]