Sir

One important aim of the European Union (EU) is to allow the free circulation of people among the different countries. In spite of this, countries such as Portugal demand that a PhD awarded abroad must be ‘recognized’ in Portugal before a researcher can have a university job.

The quickest way of gaining this ‘recognition’ is to ‘register’ the PhD, a process that involves the submission of the diploma, a copy of the thesis and a payment of up to 25,000 escudos, about US$130, to a Portuguese university. Usually, PhD status is granted after 10 days. A more lengthy process known as ‘equivalence’ involves the re-evaluation of the thesis by a panel of Portuguese professors, as if the judgement of the original jury was not to be trusted.

Although everyone assumes these to be bureaucratic formalities, they do allow for the possibility of revoking a degree awarded by another EU university, and indeed the University of Lisbon has recently chosen to reject the PhD that I obtained at the Technical University of Denmark in 1988. Are we really free to move between the universities of all EU countries?