doing a phd in europe reddit

Three MSCA Fellows from ASEAN share their experience, tips & advice:

Dr Wicak Ananduta, post-doctoral researcher at the Delft Center for Systems and Control (DCSC) at TU Delft in the Netherlands

Ms Vanessa Xavier, final year PhD student in the area of molecular mechanisms at the University of Geneva in Switzerland

Ms Gladys Langi, PhD candidate at the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland

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PhD in Europe vs the US: What You Need to Know

All that you need to know before you decide on a university for PhD abroad.

If you’re considering pursuing a PhD, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is where to do it. Two popular destinations for doctoral study are Europe and the United States. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the differences between doing a PhD in Europe and the US, focusing on key factors such as qualification requirements, time to degree, teaching requirements, coursework, and comprehensive exams.

Qualification Requirements: In Europe, a Master’s degree is typically required to enrol in a PhD program, while in the US, a Bachelor’s degree is sufficient. Additionally, European PhD programs often have stricter admission requirements and a more competitive selection process.

Time to Degree: In Europe, PhD programs typically take three to four years to complete, while in the US, they can take longer. This is partly due to differences in program structure, as European programs typically have more focus on research, while US programs include more coursework.

Teaching Requirements: In the US, PhD students are often required to serve as teaching or research assistants to gain practical experience in their field. This is less common in Europe, where the focus is more on research.

Coursework: In the US, PhD programs typically require more coursework than in Europe, with students taking classes in their field of study as well as in related areas. In Europe, the focus is more on research, and students may take fewer courses. To know more about research and coursework needed for PhD abroad  click here.

Comprehensive Exams: In the US, PhD students are typically required to pass comprehensive exams , which test their knowledge in their field of study. These exams are less common in Europe, where the focus is more on the research project itself.

In conclusion, there are significant differences between doing a PhD in Europe and the US, with differences in admission requirements, time to degree, teaching requirements, coursework,  funding, salary,  and comprehensive exams. When deciding where to pursue your PhD, it’s important to consider your personal preferences and goals and to research programs carefully to ensure the best fit for you.

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Vatican Document Casts Gender Change and Fluidity as Threat to Human Dignity

The statement is likely to be embraced by conservatives and stir consternation among L.G.B.T.Q. advocates who fear it will be used as a cudgel against transgender people.

By Jason Horowitz and Elisabetta Povoledo

Reporting from Rome

The Vatican on Monday issued a new document approved by Pope Francis stating that the church believes that gender fluidity and transition surgery, as well as surrogacy, amount to affronts to human dignity.

The sex a person is assigned at birth, the document argued, was an “irrevocable gift” from God and “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” People who desire “a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes,” risk succumbing “to the age-old temptation to make oneself God.”

Regarding surrogacy, the document unequivocally stated the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition, whether the woman carrying a baby “is coerced into it or chooses to subject herself to it freely.” Surrogacy makes the child “a mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others,” the Vatican said in the document, which also opposed in vitro fertilization.

The document was intended as a broad statement of the church’s view on human dignity, including the exploitation of the poor, migrants, women and vulnerable people. The Vatican acknowledged that it was touching on difficult issues, but said that in a time of great tumult, it was essential, and it hoped beneficial, for the church to restate its teachings on the centrality of human dignity.

Even if the church’s teachings on culture war issues that Francis has largely avoided are not necessarily new, their consolidation now was likely to be embraced by conservatives for their hard line against liberal ideas on gender and surrogacy.

The document, five years in the making, immediately generated deep consternation among advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. rights in the church, who fear it will be used against transgender people. That was so, they said, even as the document warned of “unjust discrimination” in countries where transgender people are imprisoned or face aggression, violence and sometimes death.

“The Vatican is again supporting and propagating ideas that lead to real physical harm to transgender, nonbinary and other L.G.B.T.Q.+ people,” said Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based group that advocates for gay Catholics, adding that the Vatican’s defense of human dignity excluded “the segment of the human population who are transgender, nonbinary or gender nonconforming.”

He said it presented an outdated theology based on physical appearance alone and was blind to “the growing reality that a person’s gender includes the psychological, social and spiritual aspects naturally present in their lives.”

The document, he said, showed a “stunning lack of awareness of the actual lives of transgender and nonbinary people.” Its authors ignored the transgender people who shared their experiences with the church, Mr. DeBernardo said, “cavalierly,” and incorrectly, dismissing them as a purely Western phenomenon.

Though the document is a clear setback for L.G.B.T.Q. people and their supporters, the Vatican took pains to strike a balance between protecting personal human dignity and clearly stating church teaching, a tightrope Francis has tried to walk in his more than 11 years as pope.

Francis has made it a hallmark of his papacy to meet with gay and transgender Catholics and has made it his mission to broadcast a message for a more open, and less judgmental, church. Just months ago, Francis upset more conservative corners of his church by explicitly allowing L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics to receive blessings from priests and by allowing transgender people to be baptized and act as godparents .

But he has refused to budge on the church rules and doctrine that many gay and transgender Catholics feel have alienated them, revealing the limits of his push for inclusivity.

“In terms of pastoral consequences,” Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who leads the Vatican’s office on doctrine, said in a news conference Monday, “the principle of welcoming all is clear in the words of Pope Francis.”

Francis, he said, has repeatedly said that “all, all, all” must be welcomed. “Even those who don’t agree with what the church teaches and who make different choices from those that the church says in its doctrine, must be welcomed,” he said, including “those who think differently on these themes of sexuality.”

But Francis’ words were one thing, and church doctrine another, Cardinal Fernández made clear, drawing a distinction between the document, which he said was of high doctrinal importance, as opposed to the recent statement allowing blessings for same-sex Catholics. The church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”

In an echo of the tension between the substance of church law and Francis’ style of a papal inclusivity, Cardinal Fernández said on Monday that perhaps the “intrinsically disordered” language should be modified to better reflect that the church’s message that homosexual acts could not produce life.

“It’s a very strong expression and it requires explanation,” he said. “Maybe we could find an expression that is even clearer to understand what we want to say.”

Though receptive to gay and transgender followers, the pope has also consistently expressed concern about what he calls “ideological colonization,” the notion that wealthy nations arrogantly impose views — whether on gender or surrogacy — on people and religious traditions that do not necessarily agree with them. The document said “gender theory plays a central role” in that vision and that its “scientific coherence is the subject of considerable debate among experts.”

Using “on the one hand” and “on the other hand,” language, the Vatican’s office on teaching and doctrine wrote that “it should be denounced as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”

“At the same time,” it continued, “the church highlights the definite critical issues present in gender theory.”

On Monday, Cardinal Fernández also struggled to reconcile the two seemingly dissonant views.

“I am shocked having read a text from some Catholics who said, ‘Bless this military government of our country that created these laws against homosexuals,’” Cardinal Fernández said on Monday. “I wanted to die reading that.”

But he went on to say that the Vatican document was itself not a call for decriminalization, but an affirmation of what the church believed. “We shall see the consequences,” he said, adding that the church would then see how to respond.

In his presentation, Cardinal Fernández described the long process of the drafting of a document on human dignity, “Infinite Dignity,” which began in March 2019, to take into account the “latest developments on the subject in academia and the ambivalent ways in which the concept is understood today.”

In 2023, Francis sent the document back with instructions to “highlight topics closely connected to the theme of dignity, such as poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war, and other themes.” Francis signed off on the document on March 25.

The long road, Cardinal Fernández wrote, “reflects the gravity” of the process.

In the document, the Vatican embraced the “clear progress in understanding human dignity,” pointing to the “desire to eradicate racism, slavery, and the marginalization of women, children, the sick, and people with disabilities.”

But it said the church also sees “grave violations of that dignity,” including abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, polygamy, torture, the exploitation of the poor and migrants, human trafficking and sex abuse, violence against women, capitalism’s inequality and terrorism.

The document expressed concern that eliminating sexual differences would undercut the family, and that a response “to what are at times understandable aspirations,” will become an absolute truth and ideology, and change how children are raised.

The document argued that changing sex put individualism before nature and that human dignity as a subject was often hijacked to “justify an arbitrary proliferation of new rights,” as if “the ability to express and realize every individual preference or subjective desire should be guaranteed.”

Cardinal Fernández on Monday said that a couple desperate to have a child should turn to adoption, rather than surrogacy or in vitro fertilization because those practices, he said, eroded human dignity writ large.

Individualistic thinking, the document argues, subjugates the universality of dignity to individual standards, concerned with “psycho-physical well-being” or “individual arbitrariness or social recognition.” By making dignity subjective, the Vatican argues, it becomes subject to “arbitrariness and power interests.”

Jason Horowitz is the Rome bureau chief for The Times, covering Italy, the Vatican, Greece and other parts of Southern Europe. More about Jason Horowitz

Elisabetta Povoledo is a reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years. More about Elisabetta Povoledo

Here’s what Wall Street expects from financial markets after Iran’s attack on Israel. ‘The risk is if this situation escalates and there is contagion in the region’

Financial markets will face the new week fretting about geopolitics with much riding on whether Iran’s unprecedented weekend strike on Israel triggers rounds of retaliation. 

With investors already rattled by sticky inflation and the prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates, the escalation of the Middle East crisis is set to inject fresh volatility when trading resumes.

When  Hamas  attacked Israel in October, the biggest fear for many market participants was that Iran would ultimately be drawn into the fighting. Now as the conflict widens, many say oil could surpass $100 a barrel and expect a flight to Treasuries, gold and the dollar, along with further stock-market losses.

A spike in nerves may still be tempered by Iran’s statement that “the matter can be deemed concluded” and a report that President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US won’t support an Israeli counterattack against Iran.

“Investors’ natural reaction is to look for safe-haven assets in moments like this,” said Patrick Armstrong, chief investment officer at Plurimi Wealth LLP. “Reactions will be somewhat dependent on Israel’s response. If Israel does not escalate from here, it may provide an opportunity to buy risk assets at lower prices.”

Bitcoin gave an early insight into market sentiment. The token sank almost 9% in the wake of the attacks on Saturday, only to  rebound  on Sunday and trade near the $64,000 mark. 

Stocks markets in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar posted modest losses under thin trading volumes. 

“Middle Eastern markets opened with relative calm following Iran’s attack, which was perceived as a measured retaliation, rather than an attempt at escalation,” said Emre Akcakmak, a senior consultant at East Capital in Dubai. “However, the market impact might extend beyond the Middle East due to secondary effects on oil and energy prices, potentially influencing the global inflation outlook.”

Investors will now weigh the risk of a strike and counter-strike cycle, with many looking to oil as a guide for how to respond. Brent crude is already up almost 20% this year and trading north of $90 a barrel.  

While the conflict in the Middle East hasn’t yet had any impact on production, Red Sea attacks by Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea have disrupted shipping. Traders mostly fear a widening conflict could disrupt tanker shipments from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.

Worries about turmoil in the region have also been filtering through global markets. The S&P 500 is coming off its biggest weekly decline since October on the back of higher-than-expected inflation and disappointing bank earnings. 

In the bond market, traders will be weighing the risk that more expensive energy bills may add to swirling inflation fears. While Treasuries tend to benefit in times of uncertainty, the threat of interest rates staying high could limit moves. US equity and bond futures will open at 6 p.m. New York time Sunday.  

Meanwhile, gold has been on a tear, gaining 13% this year to hit a record above $2,400 an ounce. Investors have also sought the stability of the US dollar. An index of the currency rose 1.3% last week, the best performance since late 2022. 

Here’s what investors and analysts are saying.

Gonzalo Lardies, senior equities fund manager at Andbank: “A new environment of uncertainty is now opening up, but the market on Friday already partially priced in this situation, so if it does not get worse the impact should not be very high. The risk is if this situation escalates and there is contagion in the region.”

Alfonso Benito, chief investment officer at Dunas Capital: “I wouldn’t expect sharp drops given how Israel has defended its air shield. We should see defense companies up, oil up and gas up, while airlines could decline. Bonds will rise, but I don’t think excessively. Investors could take advantage to partially correct the increases of recent months.”

Diego Fernandez, chief investment officer at A&G Banco: “I expect risk assets trading lower at the opening and we will be patient to buy. Seasonally more complicated months begin.”

Joachim Klement, a strategist at Liberum: “The reaction will very much depend on the reaction of Israel today and whether the US can manage to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“In the next couple of days, stock markets will focus on the geopolitical situation, rather than central bank action or the strong economy in the US. Hence, we expect the rally to stall until there is more clarity if the situation in Iran-Israel calms down. If we end up in a shooting war between Israel and Iran, then the rally will be stalled for longer.”

Mark Matthews, strategist at Bank Julius Baer in Singapore: “The good thing is that Iran did warn about the attack well beforehand. Military analysts say it was done in a way that minimized casualties. I don’t see why it would cause Fed rate expectations to fall more or it would cause the oil price to go up a lot. Iran is trying to defuse this and so is the US. The key is what Israel’s answer will be, and then Iran’s answer to that. If Israel does a de-escalatory strike, and then the Iranians do an even more de-escalatory strike, then it will be over with.”

Geoff Yu, senior strategist for EMEA Markets at BNY Mellon in London:  “There is scope for further accumulation of dollars, even with recent buying after the CPI data. Our clients remain overweight the euro, Canadian dollar and some high-carry currencies such as the Mexican peso, so this is where we would watch for rotation in the greenback’s favor.”

Neil Shearing, chief economist at Capital Economics in London:  “Our sense is that events in the Middle East will add to the reasons for the Fed to adopt a more cautious approach to rate cuts, but they won’t prevent it from cutting altogether. We expect the first move in September. And assuming that the energy prices don’t spiral over the next month or so, we think that both the ECB and BOE will cut in June.”

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