How to get PhD degree in Italy -- 意大利博士从申请到毕业的流程

I would like to share my personal experience about how to get the PhD degree in Italy.

昨天读到了@dapeng 的大龄青年读博士一文，看到文中讲到在德国读博士的体会，因为评论里@dapeng哥的一句愿闻其详，我想到了写一篇关于在意大利读博的流程和我个人的体会。

The figure shows the whole education system in Italy. It illustrates that one can obtain the PhD degree after 21 years if all goes well. Maybe you feel surprised after observing the duration of PhD in Italy is only three years. But the fact is that it costs almost 4 years for every PhD candidate, I will tell the reason in the following context.

下图是意大利国家的整体教育流程，我们可以看到如果你想要获得博士学位，你需要花费21年从上小学开始，当然，这还是在一切顺利的情况下。如果你本科或者研究生延期毕业的话，这个时间将更加漫长。也许你会惊讶在意大利读博只需要三年，但事实上每一位博士学生都用了四年的时间才能获得博士学位。

(The figure is extracted from the website)

The timetable of selection PhD candidates is organized by the Italian ministry of education. One time open call in each year, the enrollment date in 1st day November. This main reason of the enrollment day is that the Italian master of science students normally get the Msc degree at the end of October. The Phd degree is established 30 years ago by ministry of education, so the new PhD student who will enroll in this year is the 33rd cycle. I am in the 30the cycle, my tutor was in the 5the cycle. My tutor is only 53 years old in this year, therefore there are old full professor in Italy who doesn't hold the Phd degree.

意大利博士的录取时间是由意大利教育部在全国范围内统一安排的，一年一次，经过多次更改入学时间。这三年里已经稳定在每年的十一月一号入学。主要照顾到意大利本国的研究生大部分在十月底获得硕士学位。意大利教育部从三十三前设立博士学位，所以今年十一月份即将入学的新博士生是意大利的第三十三届博士。我本人是第三十届，我的两位导师，一位是第四届，一位是第五届。因为我的导师今年也只有53岁，所以学校里很多老教授其实是没有PhD学位的。

The admission procedure of PhD in Italy is similar to the others countries. The first step is to contact the potential supervisor to ask whether there is an open position can apply. After communication with potential supervisor, you can apply the PhD according to the rules of doctor school if the potential supervisor say no problem. I don't suggest directly apply without any communication with the expected tutor, I think it is useless in this way since the number of positions is really very limited. The first step is to upload your transcript of master and bachelor degree. You also need upload your English certification, includes IELTS and GRE. It also need two recommendation letters and your research plan. The the admission committee will evaluate each candidate based on their educational background then give a score. All the applicants whose score above the pass line can attend the interview. The interview normally lasts about 15 mins.

博士的申请流程，类似于大多数国家，你首先要先和你期望的导师联系，询问有没有招收新博士的计划。如果你联系的导师说可以一试， 接下来按照博士生学院网站上的流程，第一步是提交你的研究生，本科生时期的成绩单，英文考试认证，例如雅思，托福和GRE。 值得一提的是，意大利的博士生的奖学金80%由学校和教育部发放，剩下一部分留给公司赞助的奖学金和各国政府的奖学金学生，例如我们国家的公派博士生。极少数由导师自己的研究经费发放奖学金。至今我还没有见到过自费的博士生。提交的材料里还需要两封推荐信和你的研究计划。接下来各个学院会按照这个硬指标给每一位学生打分，达到及格线的申请人都将参加接下来的面试环节。面试大概十五分钟左右，没有技术性问题，主要是关于为什么读，怎么读，什么预期。（面试内容我没有翻译英语。。。）

After the interview, each applicant will has the final score that added by the first time score and interview score. The the final ranking list will show on the website, the final admission just by your position in the final ranking list.

面试过后，你之前的分数会加上面试得到的分数。这个最后分数就是你最后能不能获得入场券的分数。这里没有及格线，所有申请人按照分数高低根据每个学院的招生计划，从高分往低分数。总体来说，意大利每年招收的的博士人数不多。

Now let us talk about the money! Each PhD student will get about 1000 ~ 1500 EUR per month after tax. You also have the opportunity to earn money as teaching assistant. The income of TA based on its types, which are from 25 EUR per hour to 38 EUR per hour. Every PhD student has specific fund for attending international conference or academic activities in every year, it depends on different universities and departments. Such fund in our department is 1500 EUR per year. Moreover, your scholarship will increase 50% when you are abroad.

最关键的关于钱的话题。每一个博士的奖学金大概是一个月税后1000到1500欧根据学校的不同。除此之外，当助教也可以带来收入，根据助教性质的不同，从每小时25欧到38欧税后。每一位博士每年还有用于参加国际学术交流的专门经费，我们学校是1500欧，当然这个钱花完还要出去开会，自己所在的group会给你报销。在海外活动的保险由学校购买，在海外期间，你的奖学金会提高50%。

Each PhD candidate has to pass the evaluation in each year, based on your credits and publication. The PhD candidate has to get enough credits follow the rule of doctor school. The doctor school not only ask you to attend the techniques course based on your research topics, but also ask you to attend some 'soft' course like management, technology transfer, etc. If you fail the evaluation in each academic year, you will be fired immediately.

在读博士期间，每一年的年末都会有一个学术委员会监察你这过去一年中的学习状况。包括你发表的论文，你获得的学分。意大利的博士需要修学分，不止专业课，同时也需要你修一些技术转移，创业，项目管理的课程，取得一定的学分。如果每年的审核中，你未达标，会立即被踢出。

At the end of third year, you will be asked to start write your PhD thesis. It needs three reviewers in your academic field(two are foreign professor is mandatory) who never published paper with you and your supervisor in last 5 years to evaluate your final thesis. And you have to modify your thesis according to the reviewer comments. Your supervisor will select five potential reviewers then report to the doctor school, then doctor school select randomly three of them as your reviewers. After this step, it is the time of final debate, the rules of selecting committee members is similar to the procedure of selecting thesis reviewers. After the final debate, you will know you can get PhD degree or not. Such whole procedure will spend about 6 months, so each candidate will spend almost 4 years to get the PhD degree.

到了第三年年底的时候，就要开始写博士论文了。博士论文要求必须有40%的新内容在你发表过的论文的基础上。论文完成之后，导师要向博士生学院提交一个五人审稿人的名单，其中必须有三人是外国人，而且五年内没有和你和你的导师一起发过论文。博士生学院在这五人中随机选三人审你的论文。审稿人会反馈给你意见，你要修改到审稿人满意为止。接下来就可以答辩了，答辩委员会的成员同样是导师选人，博士生学院随机选。答辩一般一个小时左右，答辩过后就知道能不能拿到博士学位了。这整个过程需要六个月以上，所以每一个学生基本都要花费大概四年的时间拿到博士学位。这多出来的一年就要看博士这三年期间你和导师的关系，关系好的导师会继续给你发钱让你度过这个阶段，然后还有一部分要回家一边找工作一边等了。

Concerning the quality of Italian PhD students, the average publication of each candidate in our department will have 2 journals and 5 conference papers when they obtain the PhD degree.

关于意大利博士的质量高低，我们学院统计的发表论文的平均值是每人2篇期刊加4篇会议在拿到博士学位的时候。

Please treasure your PhD(Permanent head Damage) friend.
请珍惜你的每一个博士（永久性脑残）朋友。

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谢谢阅读 ， Thanks for your reading!
Please feel free to upvote, comment and follow me @victory622

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