Our doctoral policy

The doctoral charter

The doctoral charter defines the values applied by Sorbonne University to doctoral training as well as the rights and obligations of the participants of this training, in particular in terms of the conditions of monitoring and supervision. It guarantees scientific excellence and defines the principles of the doctoral Program as well as the relations between all the main stakeholders. It applies to all stakeholders of the doctoral course at Sorbonne University. At the end of the admissions process, it is signed by the doctoral candidate, the thesis director and the co-director if applicable, the director of the research unit and the director of the doctoral school.

The preparation of a doctorate is part of a defined personal and professional project. The doctoral candidate benefits from a high level of training combined with professional research experience aimed at mastering transferable scientific and technical skills. A personal project conducted in a collective environment, the doctorate involves the creation of new knowledge in line with the rules of research ethics and scientific integrity; its open dissemination helps enlighten citizens, public authorities and society as a whole. 

At Sorbonne University, each doctoral candidate has a unique profile resulting from an individual training pathway. Each doctoral candidate benefits from personalised support throughout their career, which meets the requirements of inter-disciplinarity and scientific openness, internationalisation and inter-culturality, sectorial openness and the researcher's social responsibility.

Thus, doctoral courses at Sorbonne University encourage:

• international openness to ensure the development of intercultural skills, the ability to evolve and think in an international and multicultural environment;
• openness to an interdisciplinary approach and to different scientific cultures to ensure a good understanding of the challenges of tomorrow's world beyond one's field of expertise;
• openness to the various socio-economic sectors, to guarantee a good knowledge of all sectors and professions open to doctors and a career development corresponding to everyone's expectations;
• reflection on relations between society and science and the societal impact of research and scientific expertise, in order to fully assume their place as a researcher within society and public debate.

Doctoral candidates are stakeholders of their training and professional development. Sorbonne University supports and accompanies them in this process. They are called upon to contribute to the coordination and evolution of doctoral courses at Sorbonne University. 

• Maintaining a quality culture in doctoral education at research-intensive universities - Advice paper No 19, March 2016, LERU
• Professionalization of doctoral candidates: influence of "complementary" training on the development of skills and professional positioning - Paule Biaudet and Richard Wittorski , Excerpt from : Les dossiers des sciences de l'éducation, 34 | 2015 Université et formation à la recherche , Véronique Bedin (dir.), No 34, p. 91-119, 2015 - Presse universitaires du Midi- https://doi.org/10.4000/dse.1197
• The white paper on doctors' skills of the Association of Doctors of UPMC -2015
• Good practice elements in doctoral training - Advice paper No 15, January 2014, LERU