The Value of Doing Two PhDs

I have two doctorates, one from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and another from the European University Institute. When people find that out, they exhibit a wide range of reactions. Most genuinely assume that I’m walking around collecting random PhDs like I had nothing else to do.

The thing is, I didn’t set out to do it the way I did. I've always been passionate about law, and I started a PhD right after getting my first law degree as an avenue to realize that passion. Then, when doing my master’s at Harvard, I considered two options as a potential future: to stay in academia or see if I liked working for an international organization. I got an offer from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and genuinely enjoyed my time there. But I longed for more flexibility in terms of choosing my projects, and for academic freedom. I decided to pursue academic path in the end, and I wanted to do it full-time and in Europe. To do that, I needed a European doctorate. That’s how the idea to do my second PhD at the EUI came to be.

I derived a lot of value from doing both doctorates. In this post, I’d like to talk about what that value was. This is not an invitation to do the same. It’s all very individual and only you can know what works for you. But if you are struggling with a decision or feel doubts about the value of an additional degree, maybe this look behind the scenes can help you.

it's about who, not what

I got my first doctorate from the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU). I wrote about the place of performance as a criterion for determining the applicable law and international jurisdiction. I absolutely loved the topic (my book based on the thesis is available here, in Russian).

Even though the MSU is number 1 law faculty in Russia, I internalized deeply the inferiority complex that comes with being from a non-western country and for many years struggled with attributing significance to the work I’ve done. This was exacerbated by people frequently questioning my choice to do a PhD at MSU and the direct benefits I derived from it.

It's not that such questions were entirely devoid of logic. For starters, the PhD was unpaid. Unless you had your parents provide for you (I didn’t), you had to have a full-time job to pay for your living expenses (I did). You had to do it for the sake of the work itself, as all economic incentives worked against you. Further, if you did comparative or international law, you'd need foreign legal sources. You had to find a way to go to foreign libraries to access them, because the MSU, like all Russian universities, did not have subscriptions to foreign legal databases. Finally, the obvious limitation was that such PhD was only a gateway to a job in national academia. It’s direct impact on your academic future therefore was going to be limited (at least for lawyers it usually is).

Yet, in spite of all this, my first doctorate had a profound impact on my life and where I am today, and I’d do it again even if I knew in advance that I wouldn’t be building a national academic career.

It’s going to sound cliché, but like with everything in life, it’s not about what. It’s about who. The most valuable part of the experience was not the title, or the work I’ve done (although those were incredibly important) but my PhD supervisor. In terms of the positive impact he's had on my life he’s easily in the top 5. Over the years, he’s been a source of so much vital resource.

During the PhD, I applied for various programs – summer academies, research stays, semesters abroad. I generally felt attracted to everything with an international element, but the added factor was that I needed access to foreign legal materials to write my PhD. My supervisor supported every single one of my applications. He was the only person I was not shy asking for multiple recommendations (usually, in academia there is a thing called recommendation fatigue – you need to be strategic about whom and how much you ask for recommendations).

Later, he supported my applications for a master of laws, for a PhD, and for postdocs. He involved me in his projects as an arbitrator and expert on Russian law for foreign courts and tribunals. He invited me to a project that ultimately led to my 2nd book, Private International Law in Russia (came out in June 2024).

Finally, he found a sponsor that covered 2/3 of my crowdfunding campaign when I was looking to fund my degree at Harvard. I’m not sure I’d have the means to fund my Harvard degree otherwise.

He’s supported my work in a myriad of ways that I could not have imagined when I started working with him on my thesis.

I don’t know if there is a lesson to be had. Meeting people who’ll have an impact on your life is mostly luck and serendipity. You can’t plan it. But I think what I learnt from it is that it’s more important to choose with whom you work rather than what. People will always get you farther than things.

eligibility for postdocs

One of the hidden benefits of doing two PhDs is rather specific and unique to my life circumstances, one of which is that I am not an EEA national. That means that each academic program I’ve done has been a life support for me – providing not only a source of income but also a visa.

Since my right to stay in the EU was tied tome doing a doctorate at the European University Institute (EUI), it would end once I defended my thesis. That meant that I had to strategically plan the completion of my PhD at the EUI, because defending the PhD meant losing a student status, and losing a student status meant losing a visa. That also meant that I had to find a new source of support– like a postdoc – before completing the doctorate.

The problem, however, with a lot of postdocs is that they often require you to have a doctoral title before you apply. Given that applications are usually submitted a year in advance, that puts people like me in a precarious position. To be eligible for postdocs like this, I presumably have to complete my PhD, lose my student status and visa, apply for a postdoc, leave the EU, wait for their decision for a year (and not have a source of income), get a new visa, and then re-enter to do the postdoc. Otherwise, I am simply excluded from the application process or limited to positions with more flexible requirements.

I don’t think there is an intentional bias from people who design applications, but it does inadvertently exclude people who are already socio-economically disadvantaged.

Now, I was extremely lucky that it didn’t affect me as much as it otherwise would. Why? Because I was eligible for a number of postdocs due to my first doctorate. My first doctorate allowed me to meet the formal requirements of more positions than I otherwise would, if I only had a PhD from the EUI.

Two of the postdocs I got were because my first doctorate, not the second. One was from the Humboldt University of Berlin, which provided the life support that I needed for transitioning from the PhD to the ‘adult’ academic life. Another one was from the University of Lausanne, which allowed me to finish the academic projects I still had ongoing and work on converting my thesis into a book, while also thinking through the next steps.

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I hope it's been a helpful read for you. ☺️