Habilitation

The degree is conferred for a habilitation thesis based on independent scholarship, which was reviewed by and successfully defended before an academic committee in a process similar to that of a doctoral dissertation. In some countries, a habilitation degree is a required formal qualification to independently teach and examine a designated subject at the university level. The term habilitation is derived from the Medieval Latin habilitare, meaning 'to make suitable, to fit', from Classical Latin habilis 'fit, proper, skillful'. The degree developed in Germany in the seventeenth century (c. 1652). Initially, habilitation was synonymous with doctoral qualification. The term became synonymous with post-doctoral qualification in Germany in the 19th century 'when holding a doctorate seemed no longer sufficient to guarantee a proficient transfer of knowledge to the next generation'. Afterwards, it became normal in the German university system to write two doctoral theses: the inaugural thesis (Inauguraldissertation), completing a course of study; and the habilitation thesis (Habilitationsschrift), which opens the road to a professorship.