Tradition of conferment of Doctoral Degrees in Technology

800-year old tradition from Central Europe

The conferment tradition goes all the way back to the Middle Ages when universities wanted to celebrate the awarding of academic titles. The Middle Ages in Europe was an era of ceremonies, symbols and estates and the conferment ceremonies of universities were not a unique phenomenon. Other fields had their own celebrations, such as the festive rites with which a journeyman was admitted to a guild after the acceptance of his master work piece.

The first or 'original universities' were founded in Bologna and Paris as early as during the second half of the 12th century and in these, the conferment tradition became established in the 13th century. The first university of Finland, the Royal Academy of Turku, was established as late as in 1640, and it held its first Ceremonial Conferment of Master's Degrees three years after its establishment, in 1643, then conferring doctoral degrees upon 10 new master's degree holders. In the next conferment ceremony, held in 1647, the number of master's rose to 18. The first ceremony to confer doctoral degrees was organised in Turku in 1781. After the Great Fire of Turku, the university transferred to Helsinki where the faculties of philosophy and medicine celebrated their first conferment ceremonies in 1832.

Titles of master and doctor and related insignia

In the past, only those who had participated in a conferment ceremony were entitled to use an academic title. Nowadays, anyone who has completed a degree is already a master or a doctor and the conferment ceremony only serves as an official recognition of the earned title. The university faculties are usually responsible for organising their own conferment ceremonies.
In the conferment act, the conferrer of degrees gives new doctors, or the promovendi, and honorary doctors a doctoral hat as an insignia of their title of doctor. As early as in ancient Rome, a hat was a sign of a free and independent man, worn by, for instance, freed slaves and Roman senators. A hat as an academic insignia dates back to the medieval period when it symbolised the virtue of learning and a doctor's freedom to practise scientific study. Originally, the doctoral hat was a beret, but it was replaced by a hat similar to a bourgeois top hat in the 19th century. In some universities, the doctoral insignia include a sword. Masters are garlanded with a laurel wreath as a symbol of their scholarship and new status.