Q&A: PhD by publications

Time for some more Q&A! I recently received the following question:

I'm a PhD student from Country X. I found one of your posts when I was looking for the information about doctoral thesis form in Belgium. In Country Xit is possible to obtain PhD not only by writing and defending a doctoral thesis (disertation) but also by series of publications. Publications, of course, need to be consistent, published in reviewed journals etc.
Due to I'm planning to do joint PhD studies in Country X and Belgium, I would like to ask you if it is possible to obtain PhD in Belgium by series of publications? It would be a perfect option for me.

My answer was the following:

Thank you for reaching out to me through my blog with your question about doing a PhD by publications in Belgium.

As always, the requirements for graduation with a PhD degree depend on the institution and your PhD supervisor. However, a PhD by publication is possible in Belgium – a good friend of mine graduated from a research group where this option is standard.

Certainly, encouraging PhD students to turn their work into publications by allowing them to compile their journal papers into a dissertation has a lot of advantages: it helps young scientists at the beginning of their career to build up already a publication record, which is necessary for an academic position afterwards.

I hope this answer helps you!

Eva

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