In academia, a predoctoral fellow is a person combining study for a doctorate with some form of paid research or work, in other words a paid doctoral student.
Across EU, typically a pre-doctoral fellow is somebody already registered in a PhD program at a host university to work together with a full professor in a certain topic of research.
[1][failed verification] Upon completion of the research work and other requirements (e.g. graduate courses/exams, see: all but dissertation), the pre-doctoral fellow can submit the thesis to the doctoral committee for review and upon passing the review is asked to defend the thesis in a public presentation for conferral of PhD degree.
[2][dead link] In the USA a predoctoral fellow (pre-doc) is a researcher who has a master's degree (or equivalent university graduate education), but not a doctorate, but is enrolled in a preparatory program at university for admission to PhD (doctoral degree program) and often granted a stipend.
[citation needed] Predocs also refer to predoctoral (that is, before Ph.D.) research positions held at universities and research institutions as a transition, to doctoral studies.