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As a cost-saving measure, the 2025 finance law abruptly abolished the “Young Doctor” scheme , which allowed companies offering a first permanent contract to doctors to benefit from a particularly advantageous research tax credit (CIR) for two years.

An intense mobilization was then structured , aiming to reestablish a system which has allowed a spectacular increase in the number of doctoral holders hired since its reform in 2008: we note an increase of 32% in pharmacy, of 28% in IT.

This episode is a reminder that the contribution of the doctorate to the business world is still not self-evident, at least in France: although it is the highest qualification in higher education, it remains very little known, particularly among recruiters in the private sector.

It is true that the doctorate is not a diploma like the others: since the thesis today serves to prove the ability to produce new knowledge, the defense is the only exam where the jury knows less about the subject covered than the candidate. However, from a recruiter’s point of view, a diploma serves above all to prove the conformity and mastery of acquired knowledge.

How then did a title come to claim to certify the uncertifiable, that is, originality and novelty? What is the role of the doctorate in the organization of scholarly worlds, in the structuring of disciplines – and, therefore, can it constitute a lever of scientific policy for certain actors, for the State but also for businesses? And ultimately, who embarks on such an adventure, with what objectives and for what results?

To weigh up these issues of the doctorate, the project Ès lettres – Corpus of doctoral theses in letters in France in the 19th ^century  has looked at its history, starting with the creation of the Imperial University in 1806-1808: it was at this time that the doctorate acquired its place as the pinnacle of studies in the faculties of science and letters. It was then conceived as a barrier and a level regulating access to the top of the university hierarchy. It responds to a need, to delimit the summit of the new secular teaching corporation that Napoleon I ^wanted  to serve the State.

Theses are then only one or two dozen pages long, since there is no question of advancing knowledge or science: the doctorate must above all allow one to demonstrate a certain rhetorical skill , a mastery of canonical knowledge and practices .

But the concrete functions of the title quickly exceeded this objective. From the 1830s, following the action of Joseph-Victor Leclerc , dean of the Faculty of Arts in Paris from 1832 to 1865, theses became books, increasingly thick. It was only later that the regulations formalized this development, in 1840 for the Faculties of Arts and in 1848 for those of Science. We can thus better understand why Louis Pasteur, in a letter to the Minister of Public Education dated September 1, ¹⁸⁴⁸  , still wanted to specify: ”  my theses for the doctorate are research theses  .”

From the 1860s onwards, the quest for distinction pushed applicants not only to submit new knowledge, but also to seek erudition and exhaustiveness. The Third Republic completed the canonisation of the thesis , around these values ​​of specialisation, novelty and erudition, which was marked, for example, by the creation in 1885 of a national and official Catalogue of Academic Theses and Writings , whose publication was ensured by the Ministry of Public Education – the first global initiative of this type.

The title was gaining ground but was only of interest to academic careers at the time. The question of possible other uses of the title did not arise in the 19th ^century  , when the number of doctorates awarded barely exceeded the needs of reproducing the system, in a context where the vast majority of candidates, in both science and literature, prepared their thesis by teaching in secondary schools. Thus, for the entire century, there were just over 1,000 doctors of science, for as many doctors of literature.

At the beginning of the 20th ^century  , when the development of experimental science laboratories, in the public sector as well as in industry, required an influx of labor, without expanding academic career opportunities, this contribution was ensured by means of new titles, which did not confer any professional rights.

The university doctorate, created in 1897, was thus intended to attract foreign students to French laboratories, by easing the prerequisites for the defense, but without opening up a French university career to them. It should be noted that female students would seize this opportunity to strengthen their presence in doctoral studies: if the first two female doctors of letters, Léontine Zanta and Jeanne Duportal , defended in 1914, 14 women had previously obtained a university doctorate, starting with Charlotte Cipriani in 1901 .

The title of engineer-doctor, created in 1923, is intended to certify two or three-year internships in academic research laboratories by former students of engineering schools.

The third-cycle doctorate, finally, created in 1954, was intended to establish research training. Although it officially granted only limited prerogatives, its creation undoubtedly constituted the most discreet and most profound reform of higher education in the 20th ^century  . Until then, the doctorate retained from its origins the absence of training ambition, being limited to the writing and defense of theses, the fundamental idea being that scholarly talent appears randomly, that it cannot be cultivated or strengthened, that the thesis is and can only be a personal work.

With the massification of scientific activity, this concept is receding, as the development of teamwork requires the existence of common training for researchers, at varying speeds depending on the disciplines.

Everything suggests that it was the expansion and massification of higher education and research in the 1950s and 1960s in a context of full employment that transformed the role of doctoral candidates.

The sciences, particularly the physical sciences, are at the forefront  : between 1944 and 1968, while the number of students in science faculties increased fivefold, the number of doctors of science increased thirteenfold. Their role then became indispensable to scientific activity itself. Since this period, laboratories have needed a constant supply of doctoral students, while only being able to offer them stable academic career prospects during periods of growth in the higher education and research system.

Each period of slowdown in university growth therefore mechanically causes mismatches between the expectations of doctoral students on the one hand, the needs of teaching and research on the other, and, finally, the realities of employment opportunities.

The first observations concerning the difficulties of doctors entering the job market date back to the early 1970s. These difficulties were caused by the sudden closure of recruitment: net job creation in higher education and public research fell from 15% to 2% between 1968 and 1973, while the number of doctors increased by 60%.

To break this impasse, from 1971 onwards, the doctorate began to be presented as a training “by” and not only “for” research, in order to facilitate the transition of its holders to non-academic work. The National Association of Doctors of Science (Andès), created in October 1970, spearheaded this concept, with the aim of playing a role in bringing together doctors and industry.

Within its orbit, associations to assist with job placement in companies, called “job exchanges”, gradually appeared, at the initiative of physicists from Grenoble and Orsay. These structures merged in June 1980 within the Bernard-Grégory Association (ABG).

Everything suggests that the creation of the single doctorate in 1984, supported by Andès , ABG and in particular its president Jacques Friedel, thus had the objective of opening up the field of possibilities for young researchers, by pooling the futures offered by titles as different as the title of engineer-doctor, the third cycle doctorate and the state doctorate, while reserving for another title, created for the occasion, the accreditation to direct research (HDR), the reproduction of the summit of the university hierarchy.

But the image of the doctorate is thus permanently blurred, as it appears to be intended for a variety of employment sectors. The question that arises is how to once again crystallize a clear identity for this diploma – regardless of ministerial changes.

Author Bio: Pierre Verschueren is a Lecturer in Contemporary History at Marie and Louis Pasteur University (UMLP)