Habilitation

Habilitation is the highest academic qualification awarded in Germany, Austria and a number of other continental European countries, earned several years after a PhD and typically required for a full professorship. Candidates must produce a second, independent piece of research, often called the habilitation thesis, demonstrating mastery of their field, and defend it publicly before a faculty committee. The qualification dates back to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation around 1652 and remains most common in the humanities, medicine and social sciences, though it is used less in the natural sciences today. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/