Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A second-year PhD student at a UK Russell Group university, three years into a four-year stipend
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A master's student doing a research dissertation is a master's-level researcher, not a doctoral candidate
Editorial commentary
The term covers students from registration through to viva/defence; ‘doctoral student’ and ‘doctoral researcher’ are common synonyms with subtly different implications (the latter framing the doctorate as a research role rather than a programme of study). Some funders distinguish pre-candidacy and post-candidacy doctoral students.
References
- Salzburg Principles on Doctoral Education (EUA 2005, updated 2010)
- UK QAA Doctoral Degree Characteristics Statement (2020)
Also known as
PhD candidate · Doctoral student · Doctoral researcher
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
xml
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Doctoral candidate"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doctoral-candidate" />json
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Doctoral candidate",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doctoral-candidate",
"description": "A student enrolled in a doctoral degree programme (PhD, DPhil, EdD, EngD, MD, etc.) who is undertaking original research toward a thesis or equivalent capstone, under the supervision of one or more academic supervisors.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/mentorship-training-and-career-stages/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doctoral-candidate",
"sameAs": [
"PhD candidate",
"Doctoral student",
"Doctoral researcher"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
