I am an ecologist in my thirties, educated to MSc level and with six years of professional experience. For the last two years I have been working with a research group overseas, and have collected a lot of interesting data. I am now back in Ireland and plan to write up the research with between 3 and 6 journal articles. A manager in the NGO is supervising me through the process and provides good advice. The results are interesting, and if I do a good job with the write up then I am confident that I will get published in high-impact journals.

Assuming I can get these published in good journals, then I feel I will have developed my skills in research, and I'm wondering if I could get this recognised. I have not followed the standard path for a PhD (3-4 years of supervision within a university), but by doing it independently and in my spare-time, then I feel I am displaying equivalent skills, even thought they are outside of the university environment. I have developed the research, collaborated with other scientists, reviewed the literature, analysed the data, and now I will write journal articles. The research is novel and a contribution to science, all articles are in pursuit of a common research topic, and when submitted for publication they will go through the peer-review process to ensure that they meet a sufficient standard.

So I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on this? I would like to continue in academia, but my lack of a PhD currently prevents that. I'm going to write up this research independently, and is possible I'd just like someone to review it all, determine whether it meets the standard of a typical PhD, and if so, to award the qualification. Has anyone heard of a system like this in Ireland, the UK or the rest of Europe?

Thanks in advance!

Hi there it sounds like you could (once the articles are published
) be able to do a PhD by publication - you would still need to write a document (around 10,000) words that ties all the publications together and clearly conveys the unique contribution to knowledge etc. I'm not sure about costs and viva requirements but yes it is possible :)

[Part 1]
I'd strongly suggest getting advice from a relevant university department/senior academic before proceeding any further. Although it is possible in some cases to be awarded a PhD based on retrospective work ('PhD by publication' - see: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/416988.article) I gather in most cases these are only awarded to people who are existing staff/students of an institution i.e. you can't just approach a university to which you have no affiliation and ask to be assessed for a PhD by that route. Some examples of university regulations here:

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ris/pgr-support/phdbypublication
http://www.york.ac.uk/about/organisation/governance/governance-documents/ordinances-and-regulations/regulation-2/#2.9
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=7422

Is there anything standing in the way of you approaching a potential supervisor at a relevant department and asking to do a part time PhD there, maintaining your current job and co-supervision from your manager? If the fees are a deterrent, consider it's likely that even the PhD by publication route will incur fees, and set requirements of written material beyond just the papers.

[Part 2]
Though you will have undoubtedly acquired relevant research skills outside of academia, there are other benefits to affiliation with a university that you might regret lack of access to, especially if you aim to forge an academic career. A good supervisor/department will give you access to a network of other people in the field - and their name on your papers might get your work noticed by a wider audience. There may be free training on offer on various aspects of academic research, or travel awards for attending conferences. The support from other students you might find in a good department can be valuable. Internal peer review processes can save you a lot of wasted time when it comes to submitting research to journals. It may also give you a realistic view of the job prospects in your field - it isn't always easy to pick up on this from outside.

I have nothing against the concept of PhD by publication, but it's usually for people who have already been in academia for a long time and notched up a solid body of peer reviewed work. It's far less typical for people to plan to go down that route when the work has yet to be published. I just wonder whether you would be making things unnecessarily complicated for yourself by taking this path, when a more conventional route (albeit part time) might serve your aims just as well.

I'd like to think that you are going to be successful in this and I hope you don't meet too many barriers. HazyJane's advice is well worth following here.

Hazy Jane is right. Publication route is usually for staff, however, some unis let you do publication if you have previously studied with them (but not all). It is worth seeing if the uni that did your BSc or MSc would consider you. The Open University also have a PhD by publication route but I'm not sure on their process, it may well be the same as brick unis but worth a look. If there is commercial value in your findings/articles then they may be more willing to consider you. Good luck. :-D