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Habilitation defines the qualification to conduct self-contained university teaching and is the key for access to a professorship particularly at German, Austrian and Swiss universities but also many other European countries. Despite all changes implemented in the European higher education systems during the Bologna process, it is the highest qualification level issued through the process of an university examination and remains the core concept of scientific careers in these countries. It is conferred for a habilitation thesis based on independent scholarship, which was reviewed by and successfully defended before an academic committee in a process similar to that of a doctoral dissertation. In some countries, a habilitation degree is a required formal qualification to independently teach and examine a designated subject at the university level.

The term "habilitation" is derived from the Medieval Latin habilitare, "make suitable, fit" from Classical Latin "fit, proper, skillful". The degree developed in Germany in the seventeenth century (c. 1652). Initially, habilitation was synonymous with "doctoral qualification". The term became synonymous with "post-doctoral qualification" in Germany in the 19th century "when holding a doctorate seemed no longer sufficient to guarantee a proficient transfer of knowledge to the next generation." Afterwards, it became normal in the German university system to write two doctoral theses, the inaugural thesis (Inauguraldissertation), completing a course of study, and the habilitation thesis (Habilitationsschrift), which opens the road to a professorship.

Habilitation qualifications exist in France (Habilitation à diriger des recherches, "accreditation to supervise research", abbreviated HDR), Switzerland, Germany (Priv.-Doz. and/or Dr. habil.), Poland (dr hab., doktor habilitowany), Austria (formerly Univ.-Doz., now Priv.-Doz.), Egypt (العالمية Ālimiyya/Al-Azhar), Denmark (dr. med./scient./phil.), Italy (Abilitazione scientifica nazionale, since 2012), Bulgaria, Portugal (Agregação), Romania (abilitare), the Czech Republic, Finland (Dosentti/Docent), Slovakia, Sweden (Docent), Hungary, Latvia (Dr. habil.), Slovenia, Greece (υφηγεσία, υφηγητής), Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania (Habil. dr.; currently abolished and no longer conferred, but those who have earned the degree earlier will use it for lifetime), Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. A similar concept known as exists in some private universities in Brazil, and in the three state universities of the state of São Paulo, where it is a pre-requisite of full professorship.

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