Licenciat

Licenciat is a Catalan noun used to denote a person who has earned a licenciate degree, an undergraduate-level qualification awarded after several years of university study in various European and Latin American education systems. The licenciate degree historically occupied a position between the early university qualifications and later master’s degrees, with its exact place varying by country and era. In Catalan-speaking contexts, licenciat has been used to identify the degree holder rather than the field of study.

In the modern Catalan and broader European higher-education landscape, many institutions reorganized degree structures after the Bologna Process, adopting labels such as grau (bachelor) and mestr (master). As a result, the explicit use of the title licenciat in official curricula has diminished. Nevertheless, the term persists in historical documents, archival records, and some traditional or professional contexts where older naming conventions remain in use. When it appears, it typically denotes that the person completed a licenciate-level program, with the specific discipline understood from the surrounding context.

Usage and meaning of licenciat can vary by country and period, reflecting broader shifts in higher-education organization. Today, the term is often encountered in historical discussions or in regions that retain traditional nomenclature, rather than as a current formal credential in most administrative or academic settings. In contemporary practice, equivalent contemporary titles are usually indicated by the corresponding degree labels (for example, bachelor or licenciatura) in the relevant language or system.