I am an ecologist in my thirties, educated to MSc level and with six years of professional experience. For the last two years I have been working with a research group overseas, and have collected a lot of interesting data. I am now back in Ireland and plan to write up the research with between 3 and 6 journal articles. A manager in the NGO is supervising me through the process and provides good advice. The results are interesting, and if I do a good job with the write up then I am confident that I will get published in high-impact journals.

Assuming I can get these published in good journals, then I feel I will have developed my skills in research, and I'm wondering if I could get this recognised. I have not followed the standard path for a PhD (3-4 years of supervision within a university), but by doing it independently and in my spare-time, then I feel I am displaying equivalent skills, even thought they are outside of the university environment. I have developed the research, collaborated with other scientists, reviewed the literature, analysed the data, and now I will write journal articles. The research is novel and a contribution to science, all articles are in pursuit of a common research topic, and when submitted for publication they will go through the peer-review process to ensure that they meet a sufficient standard.

So I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on this? I would like to continue in academia, but my lack of a PhD currently prevents that. I'm going to write up this research independently, and is possible I'd just like someone to review it all, determine whether it meets the standard of a typical PhD, and if so, to award the qualification. Has anyone heard of a system like this in Ireland, the UK or the rest of Europe?

Thanks in advance!