At the forepoint of knowledge.
The title and rank of research doctor, or simply doctor, is confered after the defense of a dissertation or the presentation of a collection of original scientific works. It is per definition a scientist's degree, which certifies the (demonstrated) capacity to lead autonomous research in a discipline, and to produce new ideas or concepts which will increase the knowledge that humankind in general has on the discipline in question. This degree remains the highest qualification in all countries, even though an elitist country such as France (where nevertheless no university is prior to 1896) wants to distinguish among its titulars the ones who are "agrégés" (recruited), habilitated to lead collective investigations, selected among the best and certainly name some day an honorable dean among the elite of the selection from the best...
The Université Multiculturelle Internationale can grant the status of doctorant (facilitating the access to some sources of konwledge) to the ones who are preparing a doctoral dissertation, even in total autonomy or in another doctoral school. UMI lets its doctorants totally free of their orientations and methods, and encourages them, as experts of their discipline, to find by themselves their own research director among the intellectual authorities of their discipline.
UMI also welcomes candidates who have almost completed their dissertation or even already published it.
In addition to conventional dissertations UMI, these last few years, accepted some professional synthesis and research works under diversely original presentations:
an hypertexte DVD, presented like a voluminous internet site, proposing an industrial strategy for an economic sector (of which the doctorant was president of the employers federation in his country);
a pack of little practical guides with interactive CD about a corporate function, that the editor found more profitable than a single exhaustive manual;
a report, recommending the introduction of ISO normalisation in a public sector, presented as a directive or an ISO norm ready to be registered;
a collection of research papers and communications in symposia, together with the synopsis of courses taught;
a pressbook of hundreds of articles published over twenty years in reviews with reading comittees;
a collection of a hundred reports of study (of about fourty pages each), produced over fifteen years by a researcher-consultant in an international organisation...
Nevertheless for a lot of people it is either typically academic research dissertations, either professional thesis in the form of a book, the essential criteria being the transferability of processes or notions presented and the publishability of the document.
Université Multiculturelle Internationale