NARIC guide on Higher Education Systems in the European Union

Postgraduate education
Postgraduate education is at present offered at the universities of Stockholm, Uppsala, Linköping, Lund, Göteborg, Umeå, the
University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, the Royal Institute of Technology and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm,
the Stockholm School of Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Luleå University of Technology and the University
College of Jönköping. The principle in the Swedish system of doctoral studies is that the studies are systematically planned
with courses and a doctoral dissertation (doktorsavhandling). It should be possible to complete the doctoral degree
(doktorsexamen) after four years of full-time study, but the average time is around six years. Each student is entitled to
individual supervision and the dissertation is defended in public with an opponent (external examiner), often from abroad. The
dissertation may be written either as a monograph or as a so-called composite dissertation, consisting of a number of
published research papers and a summary. It is published and distributed to all universities.
Apart from doktorsexamen (doctoral degree), there is a licentiatexamen (licentiate degree), which is a research degree with a
shorter qualifying period: a minimum of two years consisting of courses and a shorter dissertation than the doctoral
dissertation. The licentiate dissertation is defended in a seminar with an opponent. This degree was reintroduced in the 1980s
starting with the technical faculty, which is the faculty
having the most licentiates because of the demand from industry. There was an older kind of licentiate degree before 1972
with different criteria from the ones mentioned above.
Scientific research after the doctoral degree may lead to the title docent, but there are no longer special positions for docent
holders in the higher education system.