Gabriel Maltese Meletti de Oliveira from Brazil completed his doctorate at two universities: the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and the Université Aix-Marseille in France. This was made possible by a special type of doctorate.

If you do a doctorate in two countries, you can also have two titles: a rather minimalist "Doctor of Engineering" in Germany and a more detailed "Docteur en Sciences pour l'Ingénieur - spécialité Mécanique et physique des fluides" in France. In March 2021, Dr.-Ing. Gabriel Meletti de Oliveira successfully completed his PhD in Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics. He was supervised by Prof. Dr. Uwe Harlander. His thesis is entitled "High-performance computing and laboratory experiments on strato-rotational instabilities" and deals with the fluid mechanics of astronomical rotating discs. In his experimental investigations and numerical simulations, Dr Meletti de Oliveira uses the theory of strato-rotational instabilities (SRI) for the transport of angular momentum in a layered Taylor-Couette flow.

Cotutelle as a stepping stone

Gabriel Meletti de Oliveira currently holds a postdoctoral position at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His project is a collaboration between the university and the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. "My task is to investigate how turbulence characteristics are influenced by stratified multiphase flows in pipes and channels," he says, explaining the focus of his work. However, as Prof. Dr. Harlander reports, he will soon be returning to France, the partner country of his binational Cotutelle doctorate: "Mr. Meletti is currently working as a postdoc in Brazil, but now has a postdoc offer from the Université Lyon - one of the best addresses for experimental fluid mechanics in Europe. The Cotutelle degree was certainly a decisive factor in his application."

Background

Cotutelle de Thèse (French: co-tut elle, "write together with her") is a special type of doctorate in which doctoral students conduct research and are supervised at two universities. This involves a stay of at least 12 months at the partner university. In order to realise this, an individual Cotutelle agreement is concluded as early as possible in the doctoral phase, which clarifies the details. The doctoral procedure ends with the submission of a dissertation and an oral examination. Upon successful completion, a doctoral degree is awarded by two universities, which may be used in the respective valid form in both countries.

The advantages of a Cotutelle doctorate are numerous: the research project is academically linked to two countries and is based on the expertise of the two universities involved. In addition, the doctoral candidates can improve their language skills and knowledge of the culture of the other country. However, the significantly higher administrative and organisational effort involved in this type of doctorate creates very good conditions for an international career.

BTU has currently signed eight further individual Cotutelle agreements as well as two framework agreements with the Moscow Power Engineering Institute and Deakin University Melbourne.