All about the Joint PhD Program
Also popularly known as split-PhDs, it is a single PhD program done at two universities or institutions at a time on the same topic. Students must meet the requirements of both the universities to obtain admissions leading to either two PhD degrees or single. Often one or more universities collaborate to conduct academic and research programs and are supervised and guided by faculty from both the universities. The study or the research will be conducted on the ongoing research collaboration between the universities or third party research groups. There are three types of joint-PhD programs which are defined on the basis of amount of work that needs to be done. The first one is the Pre-defined project which is done by the two universities jointly. The second one is the established schemes by high-level universities or institutions. The third one is normal joint PhD from two universities which do not have a formal agreement.
Joint PhDs are being conducted by universities to strengthen and broaden their research collaboration and are not easy for all students as Joint PhDs are specialized studies. Students should study how a joint-PhD can add to their strength or research. The students must keep moving from one place to other, discuss the ideas and work with both the supervisors and also mediate between them. Although students will have access to libraries and both university campuses, it is not always easy to secure funding for a Joint PhD. But students can get closer the best researchers, discuss and work with them through Joint PhDs. Students have to look out for matching supervisors relevant to your field of study and interest. Students must also take care to follow the language in which the thesis needs to submitted and in which format to be documented. If they lack skills to properly format their thesis, they can also take help from experts for formatting thesis.
All together Joint PhDs are quite rigorous and require a lot more work than normal PhDs.