text:
Whether to tell his prospective employer that a new male post doc opposes affirmative action for women in academia?
I personally know a male graduate student who works in a different area (in STEM) than mine and who has a potentially controversial view.  He opposes to affirmative actions for women in academia and outreach activities for female teenagers conducted by a university.  He's repeatedly and openly expressed his idea on his public Facebook post, in his (and my) native language, which is not English.
This particular student is soon graduating and has been granted a post as a post-doc at a very prestigious university in the U.S., from (I suppose) this fall on.  I don't think that whoever in charge of hiring him knows his view, since, albeit they are public, his posts are not written in English.
While I don't know if his beliefs should prevent him from being hired, I do think that this may be a potential concern to his future employers.
Obviously I'm really concerned about his views and feel that, since they are expressed openly, it might be appropriate to make sure his prospective employers know about them. Is there a professional way to do this, or is it the case that no matter how baleful and publicly expressed the views may be, I should play no part in informing his prospective employers?
Corrigendum: I should have been really, really careful as to how to put my question.  For one thing, I don't see his view anti-feminist.  The word anti-feminist appears there (with quotation marks) because I couldn't think of a good adjective.  It could have been anything else.  Since so many people are distracted by this, I remove the word completely.

"He opposes to affirmative actions for women in academia and outreach activities for female teenagers conducted by a university" does not automatically classify as misogyny (there is implication only in one way). Prevention from hiring such person is not better than for someone of religious or political views you disagree with (or even: ideologies that you keep in contempt). Does he exhibit any activity that can be a proof of his sexism OR does he have a track of poor references from his female collaborators?

@PiotrMigdal For the first sentence, I think you may be right; however, I don't know the right word for his view so please think I defined misogyny temporarily so that his view may be described as such.  And it's not that I believe that such a person should not be hired.  But anyway, I think I need to hedge my problem statement.

@Pteromys I think there is little you can or should do.  If you were already at the lab he has applied, a better question here would be about asking if it is a good idea to tell your supervisor about personal beliefs you know of a candidate.  Unless someone has explicitly stated harm against a person, I doubt anyone would like to hear your point of view without already knowing you.

@user1938107 I guess I should have put my question differently.  My question is really about how to let them know of his posts as a mere fact, and not about telling my viewpoint.  And I totally agree that it is very hard to contact their employers, as you stated; and that's why I asked this question.

@PiotrMigdal As for your last question, I don't know of his sexist activities or poor reference from his female collaborators; he and I belong to different departments and I don't know everything he does in his laboratory.

Nothing described in the OP's post warrants a "warning" to prospective employers. We are past McCarthy, aren't we? (On the other hand, if there are things the OP is omitting -- such as actual discriminative action performed by the student, or favoritism based on political opinion -- then there certainly is reasons to act.)

This question sounds too much like: "I disagree with the views of my colleague.  How can I undermine his career?"  Do you see what's wrong with that?  (For the record and before anyone starts accusing me for furthering my own views: personally I support affirmative action.)

Why are people downvoting this question? IIRC, downvotes are for badly phrased or ill-researched questions, not to state disagreement with the OP.

@Szabolcs well, if you see what's wrong with that, maybe you should be posting an answer to this question......

If you aren't understating the ideas he's expressed for the purpose of being polite on a public site, it's entirely possible that to your colleague, your own views are very anti-female.  Are you unaware that some women take extreme offense to a public policy that presumes females aren't as good and cannot get in on the merits of their work, but have to be gifted opportunities based on lower standards/requirements?  Having differing opinions on how to address structural inequality is not evil.

In short, the title of your question is in error, and should read "about his view about public policy toward women in academia"

On the danger of being redundant to existing comments: There are several people (including women) who think that affirmative action (and gender-targeted outreach) is counterproductive to the goals it tries to achieve or is ethically wrong. While this point of view is excessively debatable (and we certainly should not start doing so here), it is far from being misogynic and certainly not something warranting that anybody needs to be warned of.

A view against affirmative action is not "a view about women".

@xLeitix: Because it is based on two fundamental misunderstandings. One surrounds the colleagues's views; the other surrounds the OP's role (i.e. he is not the thought police).

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Agree, but the quality of a question does not depend on whether the poster has a very sensible opinion. The question is well-formed, attracts a lot of interest (hence is arguably relevant), and has a pretty clear answer imho (the one that JeffE gave). Hence, it is a good question and should be upvoted rather than down.

@xLeitix: What I'm suggesting is that the quality of the question is poor because it is based on a false premise (not because the OP believes that premise which, I agree, is irrelevant!)

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I disagree. If we follow this reasoning, 75% of our questions need to get downvoted. Also, if you understand the context of your question fully, why do you even need to ask (especially for such soft questions, as we deal with)?

@xLeitix: There's merit in what you're saying.

Related: Should I recommend a student with a bad ideology?

Protecting this question to avoid non-answers from new users.

Basically this question is "There is someone with a different political affiliation than mine. He doesn't harass anyone, doesn't commit any illegal or unethical acts, doesn't encourage hatred or violence, he just doesn't keep his political affiliation a secret. I want  his career ruined, just because he does not believe the same things I believe in." Who is the bigot here?

For what it's worth, I deleted both my answers since @reirab's answer contains legal perspective that invalidates all of what I suggested. Perhaps you are meddlesome but I give you the benefit of the doubt that your colleague is egregiously fascist and polemically vocal about how his women colleagues must be stupid since aff ac got them in, in which case yes, I would be thinking hard about whether there's appropriate actions I can take. So, hoping you're not trying to sabotage someone who merely disagrees with your politics, +1, good question.

You say "he opposes affirmative action for women" as though it's a crime to oppose affirmative action.

Seems like the other commenters have already covered this but opposing affirmative action is not necessarily discrimination. For example, I personally oppose ethnic affirmative action based on race at universities because I have an Asian last name. Admissions offices at top universities set a higher standard on me simply because of a stereotype. Am I racist because I want admissions to be based solely off of merit?

Interestingly in some countries (e.g. England) "affirmative action" would simply be defined as discrimination and is actually illegal

@AAA You're not just giving the OP the benefit of the doubt, you're going even further than the OP did in imputing negative traits to the colleague.  In particular, you are the only one that I see raising the notion of women being "stupid" (and having some other negative traits that you mentioned in your now-deleted answers.)  And frankly, I find your habit of going around calling people fascists very disturbing...

Imagine that it was 1970 and the OP was asking what to do about a colleague who vocally opposed the Vietnam war.  I would hope no one here would call the colleague a communist and then start railing against communists in general and assuming that the colleague must be creating a hostile work environment for veterans in his workplace by spitting on them.  Let's at least try to consider the question independently of our personal biases.

@AAA How is anti-Affirmative action fascist? At its root, "affirmative action" is the state meddling in hiring practices, which is more of a fascist idea than leaving hiring decisions to business.

@LegoStormtroopr for the 6th time in this thread, I did not say having an anti-affirmatve action viewpoint is fascist. I do know one graduate student who openly identifies as fascist who is very vocal about his affirmative action views, which is why I said "I give you the benefit of the doubt that your colleague is fascist [and eats babies or what have you.]" Got it? Secondly, I don't care what your views on affirmative action are, especially when you feel like labeling random things as fascist. I'm not out to convince you in this thread that systemic inequality or white privilege exist.

Not that I support that persons views, but I miss the days when people where not be judged by a post they made some years ago, when the numbers of likes or shares didn't measure quality of something, etc. People take social networks way too serious.

@AAA I didn't refute inequality or white privilege (what has that to do with anything in this question, I'll never know). You stated that "I give you the benefit of the doubt that your colleague is egregiously fascist", and I was merely stating that of any position in the question, pro-Affirmative action is more leaning towards fascism rather than anti-.

Have you never thought that the true feminism is hiring women for their talents rather than because they are women ?

@darij — The discriminative action is the policy supported by user11000.

"has a potentially controversial view" I din`t know we were living in the book 1984 and that "thought police" is a thing.....

Mind your own business.
If you believe that your colleague poses an actual threat to someone, it is of course your duty to warn them.  But opinions are not threats.  It is entirely up to your colleague who he shares his opinions with.  Revealing your colleague's opinions to his future employer, no matter how offensive you may find them, would be a violation of his privacy.

Can you elaborate on how privacy applies to open and publicly expressed opinions?

@AAA I wouldn't count Facebook as necessarily public or any personal conversations between two people.

@AustinHenley well, that depends on the privacy of a post. When OP says "but not in English" I'm inferring that they would be public/discoverable except for the language. I'm not sure the privacy status of public but not in English, I think that's actually a good, tricky question on the OP's part to raise.

opinions < harrassment < threats... that's the issue I think. Covered in my lengthier answer.

This answers looks a bit harsh to me in how it is formulated. The big "mind your own business" could be off-putting.

@FedericoPoloni One thing many people here appreciate about JeffE's writing is that it is very short and very direct. He is not all bubblegum and rainbows but his writing is concise and meaningful. When I read the OP's question, those four big words in bold are what kept popping into my mind.

@FedericoPoloni This is exactly what makes the answer good. The asker is on a dangerous track and needs to be quashed quickly and directly.

@FedericoPoloni It needs to be harsh. What the OP is suggesting is an extremely bad idea and, if the institution in question is public, is also illegal (see my answer.)

@earthling (and the following comments) I disagree. "Mind your own business" is something I could hear a Mob boss say. This answer is intimidating, not explaining OP why he/she is wrong. We have plenty of rational arguments in our favor, let us use them.

@FedericoPoloni I do understand, and appreciate your point. In fairness, there is a rational argument below that extreme headline.

I tend to doubt that JeffE or anyone responding to  Federico Poloni would call out like this answer in person, especially to someone you just met. Or maybe you do. I don't know...

@FedericoPoloni Coming for an eastern bloc country with the history of denounciators to the secret service similar to KGB or Stasi I believe the suggested practice of denouncing a thought crime well deserves an intimidating answer.

+1 to @VladimirF and this answer. I find this question preposterous, almost certainly fueled by envy, and am glad it didn't get what I expected to be the usual treatment here.

@FedericoPoloni - It's not nearly harsh enough from where I stand. A correct answer would be "You're acting worse than what your ilk accused Joseph McCarty of - except you're making up the danger and he wasn't. Go live in a communist country if you think that you have the right to persecute other people for their views".

@VladimirF, I thought about the same: KGB and Communist party and snitches. It was such a bad academic environment when academics were reporting on each other, it's nauseating to think that some would be ready to do it here in US.

There is no way to do this in a professional way.
First of all, if he has been admitted already, it is too late to blow the whistle. Unless what you are revealing is a criminal offence, changing idea and refusing to give him a position to which he has been accepted is legally impossible.
Secondly, sending an e-mail or contacting the hiring committee out of the blue would sound very strange. You are probably the one that would appear as a 'hater' if you write to a professor 'hi, you don't know me at all, but I wanted to tell you that this guy is a horrible person --- to prove it, here are two sentences out of context from a Facebook post that I translated myself'. My first reaction would be thinking that you hate him for personal reasons and are trying to destroy his reputation with fake claims.
Thirdly, as noted already by other users, you are basically trying to shame him for what you regard as a thought crime. What you have objections on are his opinions, not his actions. In most countries, freedom of thought and speech is highly regarded. Unless what you are trying to report is something universally considered abject, such as apology of paedophilia or of the Holocaust, the odds are that people will consider you, not him, the bad person. Sexism isn't high enough on the horribleness scale to elicit such a reaction.
That said, I prefer not to comment at all on whether what he wrote is a sign of sexism and/or morally wrong; this is a different issue.

How is being against affirmative action (which can be said to be inherently sexist/racist/*ist) a "thought crime"? Or "sexism" in the slightest? o.O

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I wanted to use "thought crime" in the 1984 sense; I do not mean to say that it is literally a crime. I never wrote in my answer that I consider it sexism, either. I think that we should answer this question independently from these issues. The question is basically "should I let a selection committee know, and how, if I think a candidate they selected is sexist" --- we do not need to decide whether the original poster is right in his/her beliefs to answer it.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit - It is a thought crime from the point of view (very clearly expressed by OP) of progressive-politics individuals.

I agree with this answer, and I think most reasonable recruiters would agree too.

The sexism is not the opinion of the guy being hired. The sexism is the quotas.

@DVK — In my opinion, being anti-quotas is not a thought crime. And I am a progressive politics individual.

I wonder why a +50 landed on the other answer instead of this, calm and thought-out, one.

TL;DR: Don't do this. In the case of a U.S. public university, it would be illegal for them to take any action based on what you want to tell them. Additionally, telling them is a bad idea for the reasons other answers have already given.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. The quotes below, though, are from lawyers who also just so happen to be U.S. Supreme Court justices or U.S. Court of Appeals justices.

In addition to the excellent answers already here, what you are suggesting has actually been ruled illegal for U.S. public universities (or almost any other government job in the U.S., regardless of whether it's at the federal, state, or local level.) Furthermore, anyone deemed to be acting to discriminate on such a basis on the behalf of the state can be sued individually in addition to the state institution itself being sued. If anyone acted on your advice not to hire this person because of his political beliefs, he could sue them. Additionally, he might even be able to sue you.
For more information, see Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, a U.S. Supreme Court case which ruled:

Today we are asked to decide the constitutionality of several related political patronage practices — whether promotion, transfer, recall, and hiring decisions involving low-level public employees may be constitutionally based on party affiliation and support. We hold that they may not.

Additionally, see Elrod v. Burns, which ruled similarly:

Patronage dismissals severely restrict political belief and association, which constitute the core of those activities protected by the First Amendment, and government may not, without seriously inhibiting First Amendment rights, force a public employee to relinquish his right to political association as the price of holding a public job.

In a more recent case, Wagner v. Jones, a law professor was able to individually sue the Dean who made an illegal decision not to hire her based on her political views. Due to unrelated technicalities, that case is still winding its way through the courts, though the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled that:

[T]he First Amendment prohibits a state from basing hiring decisions on
  political beliefs or associations with limited exceptions for policymaking and
  confidential positions.

[Near the bottom of page 10]
and that:

Section 1983 provides a civil cause of action against any person who, under
  color of state law, causes a deprivation of the rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States. 42 U.S.C. § 1983

[beginning of Section II at the bottom of page 9]

I deleted both my answers since legal precedence trumps...  thanks for putting this together.

"He might even be able to sue you"—of course he can sue you; anyone can sue anybody else whenever they feel like it.

@kundor They can, but it would normally be summarily dismissed if there were no actionable cause.

"Today we are asked to decide the constitutionality of several related political patronage practices — whether promotion, transfer, recall, and hiring decisions involving low-level public employees may be constitutionally based on party affiliation and support. We hold that they may not." -- Supreme court rulings can be quite narrow. Is it certain that a position on affirmative action is "party affiliation and support"? One of the other quotations refer to political beliefs, though, which seems more like it.

@SteveJessop That wording was used because that was the circumstance of the specific case (Rutan v. Republican Party.) Rutan actually cited Elrod as precedent. Wagner v. Jones actually refers to a situation nearly identical to that of what the OP was trying to do, specifically of someone not being hired as a university professor on the grounds of their political beliefs. IIRC, that decision cited the other two.

@SteveJessop In the case of Elrod, the specific case involved existing employees being fired. Rutan clarified that no employment action ("whether promotion, transfer, recall, or hiring decisions") can be made on the basis of political affiliation. I don't think there was any intent there to narrow to cases explicitly involving party association and apparently the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals didn't think so either when writing their ruling in the Wagner case.

He opposes to affirmative actions for women in academia and outreach activities for female teenagers conducted by a university.

While I disagree with that view, I am not ready to call it "anti-feminist".  Anyway, it is possible to have an academic job and hold anti-feminist views.  A postdoc who holds (only) these views does not present an "immediate danger", in that it is unlikely that he will be involved in hiring, personnel or policy decisions.
Such a person is (I think) more likely to engage in poor or unacceptable behavior while on the job.  However, that has certainly not happened yet at the postdoc job (it hasn't started yet) and you say nothing about such behavior as a graduate student.  Whether Facebook is public or not -- it's clearly somewhere towards the middle of the increasingly complicated spectrum of public versus private life -- it is certainly not professional: that is, he did not post these things in the context of his job.
If I had hired a postdoc and received information about such messages on Facebook, I almost certainly would not reconsider the hiring decision.  It would be hard for me to forget it, and I might keep an eye on the postdoc to see whether they behave in any inappropriate way...but the whole thing would make me a bit uncomfortable.  We hire (especially STEM?) postdocs for their technical abilities, not for their political and social right-thinking.  A lot of postdocs are from foreign countries, and I do not assume that foreign postdocs occupy the same position on the socio-political spectrum as most American academics.  I assume that they will mostly stay out of trouble, and that if they get tenure-track positions they (as with everyone else) keep an open mind and learn about what their colleagues and superiors value.
I would say that if the writings concern you -- which I find quite reasonable -- then you should consider responding to it at the source: i.e., on Facebook itself.  I try to reply to a positive proportion of emails / posts I see which I regard as being sexist / racist / morally wrong: it can be tedious to do so, but you don't want to politely say nothing while other people say terrible things.  On the other hand, you may want to simply stop receiving posts from this person.  I became Facebook friends a few years back with someone I had gone to junior high and high school with, and I got treated to a barrage of postings about how employers shouldn't have to cover women's health expenses that they didn't morally agree with.  I think I responded once or twice, and after that I blocked the posts.  I feel much better!

Presumably you meant "political and social left-thinking"

@Ben Voigt: the pun was somewhat intended, yes.

+1 for suggesting that the OP respond directly, or in the forum where the opinions were originally shared. For an academic, I'd hope this would be the obvious thing to do.

" I am not ready to call it "anti-feminist"." Even if it was anti-feminist or simply non-feminist, where's the problem? There is no law saying you must be a feminist, that's just a political opinion. Actually I think affirmative actions are quite debatable, and there is absolutely no global consesus on them.

@Bakuriu: Well, for instance my university certainly has a non-discrimination policy, as does virtually every US university.  If a candidate had been found to act at their US university in a way that violated the policies of most US universities, I would consider that to be more than a "political opinion".  As for the debatability of affirmative action: yes it certainly is, and you don't have to go global to see it.  "Anti-feminist" to me would mean something like refusing to write recommendations for female students, or on prinicple never writing as good a recommendation for a female student.

@PeteL.Clark: "refusing to write recommendations for female students, or on principle never writing as good a recommendation for a female student" would be anti-female, not anti-feminist.

@Tom: The OP has long since admitted that the term "anti-feminist" was ill-chosen.  I was going more for what I think the intended meaning was than the standard meaning of "anti-feminist"...which I agree sounds political and somewhat nebulous.  Anyway, I don't want to argue about it, for instance because I am not sufficiently confident that I know what I'm talking about.

Let's look at this question by looking at affirmative action, the university setting, and your role in it:
Affirmative Action
It's hard to gauge his specific position, but being against affirmative action/outreach programs does not mean that this person is against the group that is supposed to benefit from these programs. It can simply mean that this person sees affirmative action as the wrong solution to an issue that might or might not be an actual problem.
For example, this person can think that the gender of a student should be irrelevant, and they themselves have no preference for, e.g., male or female students. In fact, they do what is ostensibly desired -- they treat men and women the same. Interest, persistence, grades, performance, etc. should count, not whether this person is/identifies as male or female. They might even welcome women if they have similar competence (a requirement for the contact hypothesis to work). They might see the differences between the percentages of men and women in certain domains within STEM due to a different distribution of interests, not due to discrimination that requires affirmative action, or think that Academia is not specifically hostile to women but hostile in general (many PhDs, few tenure track positions). There is also the counter-intuitive finding that affirmative action might hurt those it should benefit. At least for race there was an interesting "intelligence squared" debate.
In the following, I'm assuming that this person has thought about his position.
University Setting
Now let's look at affirmative action in the university setting. Unfortunately, some people think that anything but (at least) 50% women in highly prestigious fields like STEM indicate discrimination (ignoring, e.g., prior interests). And for some, it's an ideological issue where questions or an open debate with arguments based on theory and evidence are not tolerated. If you are not for positive discrimination, you are seen as acting actively against women -- even if you just apply the same standards to men and women.
Even worse, I get the impression that some universities get more and more infected by ideology. They are turning into indoctrination places where having the right (or rather: the left) point of view is all that counts (FIRE is an interesting source here). Personally, I think that universities can and should do better. If you cannot discuss "potentially controversial views" at the university then where can you discuss them? But realistically, in some universities open discussion of controversial ideas can draw a lot of outrage (including from students).
Your Role as 'potentially concerned person'
Given the explosive nature of the topic for many people, exposing a contrary view of someone could cause damage. Not necessarily because of the issue, but because you make it an issue. Especially if it is done without this person's knowledge. Or would you tell him in advance that you translated or summarized his postings and gave them to his prospective employers because you were "concerned"?
If you inform his employers/colleagues, I would hope that they have even a shred of integrity and have a look (and a translation) for themselves. Depending on how thought out his views are, they might conclude that he is not the problem but the informant is. They might even regard the informant as a backstabbing snitch who is envious that their new employee was accepted to "a very prestigious university" despite (what the snitch considers) his "potentially controversial views". Even if it damages his career (which it easily might), I don't think that the snitch would come out with a good reputation.
If the new post-doc on the other hand is open about these issues, good. I hope so. Issues should be discussed openly. But considering how easily criticism of a publicly widely accepted view can be misunderstood and misconstrued, it's his decision whether or when and how to talk about it in an Academic context. Personally, I do not think it would belong in a talk with a prospective employer as the topic is too complex and explosive for a superficial conversation and is likely to be misunderstood.
A better solution
If you are "really concerned" about his views, then you can -- as others have written -- talk to him. Discuss the issue with him on the platform of his choosing (here: Facebook). Of course, the same ideologues for whom affirmative action is "not debatable" might regard any person having a debate about the topic as a problem. At the very least you consider something debatable that for them is a no-brainer! And how would you react if he made a point? But perhaps that's a bit too much "censor in the head". ;-)
But if affirmative action really is a no-brainer, you should be able to argue for your point of view and try to convince him. Because frankly, no view -- even if it is/were "right"/"true"/"correct"/"the best solution there is" -- should prevail just because those who have a different position were stabbed in the back when it came to hiring and promotion.
(edit: spelling)

Underrated answer in my opinion! Very good points stated.

Another good response. One note however. If the person in question is intelligent enough to be against affirmative action (discrimination), then he's probably not going to be easily swayed.

@Keith Touché ;-)

Awesome response, well-written. This is exactly how I feel about affirmative action.

My understanding that in said country (you are in USA, correct?) freedom of speech is at least as important right that the "need to uniformly and loudly support" a specific policy whatever is your moral concern.

Criticisms or argument with a personal (is posting on Facebook public opinion?) opinion doesn't mean "how can I report on him to the authorities". It is like saying that reporting your ethnic origin, or sending out detailed reports on your homosexuality to prospective employers is right, and should be hailed.

Well, xkcd is irrelevant, too. May I put the other way: if I would report on OP to an employer that she is a potential backstabber based on her SE posts, therefore a terrible team-player, potentially hurting his/her colleages and employer should be concerned about the issue (this is, off course, exaggeration for the sake of example), in my opinion, I would limit OPs right to speech and raise questions publicly or anonymously, and discuss his/her concerns. In my opinion, policing thoughts and speech are essentially the two face of the same problem.

Perhaps you should [edit] your answer to say all that, then. (Right now, I don't see what your answer adds over the existing answers, which raise similar points but more accurately and clearly. What's the new point you came here to add?)

I can argue this both ways.
On the one hand, I do believe that while public speech should be free, people are also free to react to that speech. So if you really believe that this candidate should be rejected for shooting off his mouth, you're entitled to say so. (Exactly as entitled as he was to make the comments in the first place ... which comparison may indicate why you might not want to do so.)
On the other hand, a person's views -- however obnoxious you find them -- are their own. If they act on those views, including voicing them in a way/time/place that creates a hostile workplace, that's a problem and should be addressed at that time.
Until then, they're entitled to disagree even if you find that disagreeable.
I guess my answer would be: If asked, you can certainly voice your concern. I'm not at all convinced it's appropriate to do so if you aren't asked. Remember that the folks accepting/hiring this grad student are perfectly capable of websearching him themselves, and these days have probably done so as part of their HR process. If they've taken him anyway, odds are that you won't change their mind unless there's more going on than you've told us.
And really, how important is it for you to sabotage him, and why? Let him get himself into trouble, if he's going to. Or let him learn how not to. It really doesn't sound like he's a danger to anyone.

I'm curious to know how not supporting affirmative action is potentially troublesome, something that could be dangerous.

So am  I. That's  the point. There seems no need of a warning. He will either piss someone off or he won't, and there's(  little value to be gained,to anyone,  from getting involved.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
On agreeing on length of PhD program in advance and three year studies
I know people say in Europe (say in Computer Science) a PhD normally takes three to four years. My concern is: is there no way to know the number of years in advance? Is it not something I can "agree" with the supervisors before hand how long it will take? Exactly? Not approximately, rather exactly. In other words are three year long phd programs common?

First you agree to make a major discovery within 3 years.  Then we'll talk about a guarantee that you will finish within 4 years...

@GEdgar: I didn't particularly get your answer, neither I did the downvote (for what seems to me a valid question)

I've edited the question title.

don't get why I got downvoted though

Getting a PhD is not an automated process, and the usual obstacle to earlier completion is the student, rather than the advisor, etc.

@paulgarrett:I understand but using that logic this process could as well be endless

You will not receive this guarantee in any reputable school. Doing a PhD is mostly your work. Nobody can guarantee how long it will take you do generate the necessary research results.

There is not "logic" here, only that an advisor cannot promise to a student what the student will accomplish and/or how quickly. Reasonable advisors give reasonable projects, but this does not compel a student to be reasonable, nor to be more capable than they are, and so on.

You could fix in advance an agreed time when you will stop being a student. You just wouldn't be able to guarantee that you would graduate at the end.

Your title features the clause "... in Europe". There's nothing specifically European to this: No reputable Ph.D. program and no doctoral advertisers anywhere in the world will guarantee that you will graduate with a Ph.D. in exactly N years, where N is some positive number. (The only way they even might be in a position to make such a guarantee if you've already performed all of your research and the advisers know that it's of high quality before you arrive at the university...)

@Mico: which ain't good because like I said especially for people who want to do it abroad it makes difference for them to leave for three or four years. Plus I think you are making it a bit more dramatic, you can see other comments too. Anyway I understand the point of view in most answers here, not sure if that reflects students interests fully though

@JessicaB if one takes 80+ years to finish a PhD I suspect even if the results had been Nobel-worthy at the beginning of studies be nowhere near PhD worthy at the end.  For this reason, I suspect that most reputable institutions do have such an agreed upon time.  Though Brian Mays completed his PhD after 37 years.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May#Astrophysics

@user300234 - Why is it "not good"? I will say confidently that it is very good indeed that no reputable Ph.D. program will guarantee that you (or anyone else) will graduate with certainty with a Ph.D. within N years. If any institution were rash enough to make such a guarantee, a high proportion of its doctoral students would stop working entirely. After all, why work hard if you're guaranteed to get a Ph.D. degree anyway?

@Mico:it's not about guarantee it's about time frame: they say it is done either in three years or not done.

What's the purpose in committing to a precise time frame (say, three years and no more) if there can be no agreement as to what will have been achieved by the end of the time period?

@Mico: I don't know Mico you are telling it to me from University perspective. I am asking you from client perspective. It's like I am asking you in shop: Can you please give me blue ball? And you start explaining me reasons why you can't have blue ball. I am not interested in that. I want blue ball :).

I hate to have to tell you this, but the "client perspective" metaphor is utterly inapplicable and misleading here. Why do you see fit to adopt this perspective? Developing and applying field-specific research skills, coming up with novel ideas, and publishing them in a suitable outlet is nothing like "going to a shop to buy a blue ball" -- or any other product that already exists. I'm starting to become concerned that you have no idea as to what may be awaiting you should you enroll in a serious Ph.D. program -- whether in Europe or anywhere else in the world.

@Mico: what awaits me? I do have rough idea believe me. Ok we can stop discussing in this direction because I have a feeling we are stuck: I will try to move with other comments answers. ps. you can view anything as 'product' that is why I brought example, in my case it would just be client interested in product which is 3 year phd. Like with the blue ball.

Of course you can choose to view anything in any way you wish, and you are free to attach whatever labels you can think of to whatever you call a "product". The question, though, is whether the chosen perspective provides an understanding that's helpful or misleading, and whether the labels are useful or not. Nobody "buys" a Ph.D. -- at least not from a reputable organization. Clearly, though, there's one thing we seem to agree on: I am quite unable to dissuade you from maintaining the perspective you've chosen to adopt, and thus further conversations are certain to be pointless.

@Mico: dear Mico let's finish on this that we can look at this situation in this way. I am looking for three year phd - that is my issue. I want solution to my issue, not explanations why it might not be possible. you see? Anyway I will move with seeing other answers now.

@Mico: I came to find that luck here:) but some/many/most? are saying three year degree might be difficult. Let's see how things come out

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

@Mico: to be fair, although you don't buy a PhD, you do (to some extent) buy your place in the program. If you were to agree up front with your institution/supervisor that after 3 years you will either submit or drop out, then both parties will act differently from if you retain the option to take more time if needed. In some industries the practice of setting a strict time limit as an aid to self-discipline is called "time boxing".

@user300234: You are the shop. The university is the client, and they want the blue ball -- PhD level research and thesis. How can the client say how long it will take the shop to produce it?

I want to note that if there are few PhD possibilities in your own country, it is likely that there are also few research positions in your country that would require getting one. Are you sure you need one for what you want to do, and are you sure you can do that in your own country after the PhD? If you're going to have to work abroad afterwards anyway, it all seems moot.

@SteveJessop - To me, attempts to use "business speak" in the present context, e.g., to define the precise terms of the "contract" between the university and the doctoral student, risk obscuring rather than illuminating the fundamental nature of the relationship. To be sure, it's certainly not pointless to strive for some clarity as to what may happen if, e.g., the doctoral student's progress is deamed to be insufficient after N numbers of years. In game theory, there's an entire branch of inquiry into what constitutes credible threats and commitments...

Almost certainly not.
Even in programs where the PhD research phase is supposed to have a defined length (for instance, when students receive a fellowship to cover their work for a certain period of time), it is not possible to guarantee that the PhD program will actually be completed in a certain period of time.
It can be possible to finish; however, without knowing how well a student will perform in advance, advisors can only estimate how long a PhD program will take. There is simply no way to guarantee in advance how long your student will need to finish her program. The main issue that we have is that research is inherently unpredictable, and if things don't work out right, it's difficult to say people can finish.
We can try to work with a student to plan to finish in a certain period of time, but we wouldn't try to guarantee that until the middle of the student's PhD progress.

@aesmail: Although I've seen advertisements about "three year" programs too. Is that a "lie"?

@aesmail: Although I understand your point of view, for people doing phd in different country, it might be beneficial to know that time frame in advance.

@user300234: No, they're not a lie. I work in such a program, and I try to get my students to finish in three years, and some of them do. However, not all of them finish in the regular time. And while I would like to be able to guarantee a time frame, I can't: if the student doesn't have enough results to merit getting a PhD, I can't in good conscience let them graduate just because there's some sort of "agreement" in place.

@aesmail: I see but you also acknowledge probably that like I said especially for people doing this in foreign country, it might be important to know that time frame in advance. And I've seen such positions advertising "three year" program. Maybe it depends also on the department... This variability is something I find weird

@user300234: For example, in Italy there are three-years long PhD programs, but if at the end of three years your work is deemed insufficient by your advisor or by the PhD examination board, you are required to do one more year, possibly without funding.  This is not a common event, but it happens. It can also happen that your work is considered insufficient after one year and you are not allowed to continue.

@user300234 Nobody is arguing that it would be not "good" (for everybody) if you knew exactly how long your PhD would take in advance, but due to the nature of a PhD work, that is simply not possible (no matter how great this would be for any of the involved persons). And, yes, doing a PhD can take literally forever if your results are never satisfactory.

@xLeitix: the answer/comment by Massimo Ortolano seems most reasonable by far to me.

@aeismail "until the middle of the student's PhD progress"? I thought that rather "until the thesis is submitted".

@user300234 No, it's not a lie.  It means that you won't get any funding after 3 years are up, not that you will graduate in that time.  If you don't finish, it might be up to you to support yourself financially (I've seen that happen several times).  In more extreme cases if you don't finish within the set time, you might be required to re-pay the support you received (not common, but very unfortunately it happens).

@Szabolcs: It doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get funding. It does mean that further funding is not guaranteed.

@aeismail Yes, my point was that the "length of the programme" refers to the length of funding, not a graduation deadline.

@Szabolcs: I'm saying something different though—you may still be able to get funding from other sources after the deadline has elapsed.

I think you have the hidden assumption that a Ph.D. "program" is similar to a Master's "program". This is a very dangerous assumption, which is not true at all, and can cost you a lot of time if you don't "get" it quickly.
As a Master student (or similar degree), you are presented with knowledge somebody has compiled for you, and asked to learn it, as many people before you have done. At the end, you are given a well defined task of modest dimensions and difficulty, which is related to a possible job to the field you are majoring in. It's not a research level task, it's more of a task of the type which is typically solved by a professional in your field. And your supervisor knows how it should be solved, and can guide you if you are stuck. In the end, you finish it, document it, and this is your master thesis.
A Ph.D. position is a job position as a researcher (at least in Europe - I think it involves some credit taking in the USA). You are doing original research. You have to first find a topic which is interesting enough for the research community to get published, Goldilock-dimensioned so that the answers are not trivial but can hopefully be found in a reasonable amount of time, and fits with your supervisor's interests. Then you start finding the answers to your research questions. You are hampered by two things: 1) You have never done research before, so you are learning by doing, and 2) Nobody has ever found the answers to these questions before, so neither you nor anybody else can tell you how long it will take. Your supervisor will only be able to help so much.
The bottom line is that, if you manage to do very little mistakes, and also work overtime to correct the mistakes you've made, you'll just about manage in 3 years. If it takes you longer to figure out how to produce good research, and/or you don't work overtime, it will take you longer. And you will make mistakes. Most prospective Ph.D.s spend their time from 6 to 23 learning how to learn efficiently - but this skill is very different (although a prerequisite for) the skill of doing research efficiently.

+1 Exactly this. Also, most PHD programs require the publishing of results in journals (or conferences in CS) and even if you have done the actual work and submitted an excellent work, it might still take another 4-12 months to get it accepted.

@rumtscho: I understand your point of view-the way you are trying to answer the question. Now look at it from my point of view: as a student planning to do something abroad I would like (mildly said) to know: whether I am leaving somewhere for three or four years? which are different. Is it clear now? I think it is still worthy to ask that to the school.

I sure understand why you want to know it. It's still a fact that, if you ask them, they can't answer you, because they don't know, and cannot make an estimate, for the reasons I explained here. It's like asking for next week's lotto numbers: a very valuable information, but not available to any one until the process is over.

@rumtscho: I see I see but at least I want to know if it is say worth to look for three year programs - this is aided further by facts that I see on advertisements, openings - a three year phd program by X uni. And wanted to know how worthy it is to ask about it to the school. That is it. In other words how realistic that is.

If you do ask, you should ask them what they mean by the number they are advertising. It is probably the length of time for which you get a contract and/or financing. This is completely independent of whether you will have the title (or at least completed the required work) by the time the contract ends. In my experience, a very small percentage of PhD candidates are finished by the time their first contract is up, although it varies by institution and field. You don't have to worry much about not getting finished, it is customary to get follow up contracts. But you can't plan the length well.

@rumtscho: " It is probably the length of time for which you get a contract and/or financing." ->It doesn't say that I have simple seen stuff like "three year Phd" etc.

I'm currently finishing a PhD in Germany, I also work for a research institution different from the one I'm graduating at (which also awards PhD degrees), and I have many acquaintances doing or having completed a PhD in Europe. Neither during my job search at the beginning, nor in any case I've seen since, is there a guaranteed maximum length of the "program", but timelimited contracts are the norm. That's why I suggested this explanation. You can choose to see the ads as a promise that you will have finished in 3y, but if this interpretation is wrong, there's nothing you can do about it.

@rumtscho: maybe it depends on country? See Massimo Ortolanos comment also above about italy. You want to say three year phds don't happen?

Three years PhDs do happen, but in my experience, not so frequently, even though both profs and candidates try for it. I agree that my knowledge is skewed towards Germany, but before Massimo's comment, I hadn't heard of anything indicating that the situation is different in other eu countries. And frankly, if you planned to work on one of your research questions for three months, but it turns out to need 9m, then I don't see what you, or the university, can do except accept that your project needs 6 months longer. They certainly won't accept an incomplete thesis.

"I think it involves some credit taking in the USA" -- yes, but only because "PhD program" in the US means what Europeans would call "masters + PhD program." The courses buy you the on-the-way masters; the research afterward earns the PhD proper. (Though one is still considered a "student" rather than "employee" for the whole time in the US. In particular most labor laws don't apply.)

In France there is a relatively strong policy of enforcing a fixed time frame for PhD theses, at least in STEM (things are very different in different fields, notably humanities tend to have longer PhD studies). The official duration of the PhD is 3 years, as in most Europe (the LMD system has uniformized that), and in many university a PhD student and her advisor will have to ask for a derogation and find additional funding in order to be allowed a fourth year. So, in principle it is possible to start a PhD with a three-year time frame planned, and it should in fact be the norm (but see below).
The above fact will probably astonish other answerers, as one in principle cannot pledge to find new pieces of knowledge in any given amount of time. I therefore feel it necessary to make a few observation about this before going on.

Please have a look at your last grant proposal before claiming that no one can pledge to make a significant discovery in a given amount of time.
There are two points of view on PhD duration: either we decide what is worth a PhD and have PhD students continue until they meet that standard or quit or are sacked; or we decide how much time should be spend for a PhD thesis and at the end of that time, depending on what was achieved it is decided to award the PhD or not (with the possibility that the PhD is awarded but with reports that make it clearly insufficient to continue in academia, a common event in my experience). Both points of view are conventions, none is intrinsically the good one. It happens that France has mostly the second point of view, with the provisio that derogations for a fourth year is pretty common, and even without it many applicants only defend a few month after taking another job (many European post-docs can be started before the PhD is awarded, provided it is close enough to completion).
These considerations are strongly field-dependent. Fields where researchers work on large teams can in principle (but see below) more easily have PhD student participate in projects whose completion in the next years make little doubts, while still having them learn how to do research. Some fields may be richer in subjects with low competition and high chance of success than others, etc.

However, I know from a very close relative that even making it clear at the beginning that a three-year long PhD is strongly wanted by the applicant, and even a clearly and definitely stated agreement by the advisor may not be sufficient to have your advisor really doing her best to make it happen¹. In experimental fields in particular, PhD students are close to free labor for the teams getting them, so it is a strong temptation to have them stay another year to have a stronger paper, and it is very difficult for a PhD candidate to measure by herself whether she has a case for defending earlier. In other words, my conclusion is even worse than that of other answers:

you should not consider a three-year PhD granted even if such a promise is made to you.

To end in a slightly more positive word, one of the key point is, as mentioned by another answerer, to choose your advisor wisely; in your case, this includes having a look at how long her former PhD students needed to defend, an information not always easy to track down.
¹ Which would include: assess honestly the difficulty and uncertainty of the proposed subject, giving access to tech help and helpful kits when time comes short, be available in a timely fashion for helping writing papers, accepting completion of a lesser, still publishable paper instead of a better paper that would take much more time to complete, etc.

hmm... I see. though a bit confused now, will look at your post more carefully later; initially you seem to say three years is a norm but later seems you are deviating from that opinion. thanks for input anyway

Well, I say that it should, officially, be the norm.

Kloeckner: officially yes, but in practice might be tricky it seems

+1, but here in Belgium the default time frame is 4 years, with the mean actual duration somewhere between 4 and 5 years; so I'm not so sure about that uniformization due to the LMD system (never heard of it).

@MarcClaesen: I may have taken for granted too easily what was said during the reforms in France (basically, Europe said it should be like that), or Belgium might have chosen not to enforce part of the European harmonization program.

@Benoît: The LMD system seems to be the name for France's implementation of the EU-wide Bolognia Process, and AFAIK is known under that name in most of the EU. That being said, there is no standardized time frame for PhD programs in Germany, so France's standard duration seems to be an exception rather than the norm even in Europe.

If anyone knew in advance how long it would take to produce meaningful research results, it wouldn't be research worthy of a PhD Adding something worthwhile to human knowledge takes as long as it takes, and is subject to variation either because candidate capabilities vary or because unexpected problems arise. It is entirely possible that the research project fails entirely due to a basic flaw, and does so in a way which is not itself publishable, in which case you get to try again from the beginning.
Remember, even a BS degree sometimes runs over the nominal four years, and that should be much more predictable. (My BS thesis missed the due date by three days. And I should probably have dropped a few classes (and in retrospect should have changed majors slightly, which could have extended things.) PhD is, by design and intention, a larger and less predictable commitment.
You can probably find a school which will absolutely graduate in three years with a PhD... if you don't care that nobody else in the academic or business communities will respect that as a real PhD.
Your plans should allow for these possibilities. If you can't tolerate that risk, you may want to think again about whether you really want the PhD.
And, in fact, that's an important question: Why are you looking for this specific degree? It sounds like you're not patient/dedicated enough for this kind of research to be your career, so perhaps you should be looking at other paths such as engineering. For that purpose, an MS -- or a second MS -- might serve you better.
For that matter, even in academia there are fields where an MS is considered a "terminal degree" and -- together with some real-world experience -- would make you a suitable candidate for professorship. I know someone who's been looking at "Professor of Practice" positions, which are exactly this.
Take a step back, ask yourself whether you really want to earn a PhD or only to have earned it. If the latter, you probably aren't a good candidate for any respectable program.

:it's not about being patient. It's connected with doing it in foreign country. Be it in mine it would be easier. Former is associated with long stay abroad which some people might not tolerate that well?

If you can't afford to do it in a foreign country, don't. There's no promise that this option will be affordable for everyone. There's no promise in your own country either; it's just a bit less expensive to run past the target date. You need to decide whether you can afford the costs and risks or not.

affording not from money point of view. Just some people might not prefer staying for long period in abroad country? Is that familiar to you? only from that point of view. That issues doesn't exist when you are in your own country. Is that understandable now? So I am stuck in such situation :((.

That's still the choice you have to make. If you aren't willing to take that gamble, that's fine, but then the answer is "don't study abroad." Only you can decide whether it's worth the potential cost or not, but those are the potential costs.

it's easy for you to say, because similar opportunities are not available in my country-at least they aren't that good. So I am looking for a solution which I can -or think I can-tolerate! and it's not about other factors, just some people don't like staying away for long time

I wish I had an answer which would make you happy. I don't. I'm sorry, but the world is what it is. Either find a way to make it happen, or find another plan.

I see and I am looking for solution:).I posted other question in this vein too

In many places there is an limit after which you stop receiving funding (in Europe typically 4 years).
You can ask what are official PhD times and what are typical (usually: longer).
It is a great idea to talk in advance when it comes to advisor's expectations (e.g. how many papers and in journals of which rank) and expected time span. But at best, he can give you a honest estimate (perhaps: lower limit).
He cannot guarantee that you will do it at all, much less - in a given timeframe.
Yet, it is certainly possible to set a time and act accordingly. It may be wise to set it 6-12 month before the final deadline, as delays are rather a norm than an exception. So, if you want a contract which is de facto for 4 years, in many place it is doable.

:I think its best still to discuss it with school beforehand, because like I said I've seen advertisements saying three years.

@user300234 an advertisement for a three year program means that you'll get a chance to graduate in three years  if your results are good enough, but it doesn't mean that they'll allow you to graduate after three years if at the end you haven't achieved and published any novel research. A significant proportion of students don't make good research results during those first few years, and no amount of other work or discussions can overcome that. It's also entirely plausible that you did a lot of work, but no results came out of that - still, that means no PhD.

@Peteris:that variability is tricky. I think they better spot that slow progress from the beginning say after 1 year, then tell you in the end you are not fitting in three years.

@user300234: This is hard to predict. If your first year hasn't produced anything whatsoever they should, in principle, through you out. But this almost never happens. There is also a bit of economics behind it - if you get a paid studentship the university may risk losing some of that funding. For instance, UK funding bodies consider the graduation rate as part of their decision to award/extend funding to phd programmes. So,  many, if not most, European unis won't really hurry to chuck you out even if you suck.

@Peteris: I find "It's also entirely plausible that you did a lot of work, but no results came out of that - still, that means no PhD." to be a bit misleading. In most cases I know of this still means a PhD if the student manages to write up a somewhat convincing thesis and manages to not disappoint too much during viva/thesis defence. Generally, the connection between "achievement" (as in "discovering something original") and "getting a PhD" is very, very weak.

There is no general limit on the duration of your funding in Europe. I did my PhD in Germany, and there is no funding duration limit there at all. Labor laws may limit the duration of an individual employment contract, but when being funded through research project grants, there is no limit on how many successive employment contracts you may have.

I concur with the answers to the negative above. However, I would like to mention that most (+80%) of those who get their PhDs don't discover anything of value during their studies. This percentage may be somewhat lower at the more prestigious universities but is still well above 50%. So getting your PhD is mostly the result of you convincing your supervisor (and the committee) that you made the effort and learned something in the process. I got mine in less than 3 years and while I still managed to get a publication past the peer review I don't think Computer Science is any better as result of it. And while my uni is not prestigious I also happen to know similar cases (less than 3 years with modest or even non existing publication record) at top universities. So, nobody would expect miracles from you. At least, most supervisors wouldn't.
You have to be, however, very careful when choosing a supervisor. A supervisor can make or break a PhD. I know some who treated their students as rubbish and some who were father figures of sorts. So the quality of support varies drastically within the same university - and, again, this applies to top universities, too. I would advise you to talk to students of your prospective supervisor and find out how happy they are.

How are you judging "value"?  I mean, yes, most things don't change the world, and many are never even cited, but that doesn't mean it was a waste of time.  Instead, it may be a dead end, something overshadowed by other work, or just plain not noticed.  And with research, there's often just no way to tell in advance...

@jakebeal: I didn't say "waste of time". I learned a lot as result of working on my PhD - I just don't think others did. If you remove 80% of the scientific publications we still would have about the same useful knowledge. So most of the PhDs don't discover anything that is of use to someone else.

I don't think "useful to someone else" is one of the criteria for PhD research.  It must demonstrate mastery of the area, have a novel component, and be substantial enough to satisfy the committee.  "Useful" is a natural way to view things, but it is rather too stringent in most cases.

While I concur that most doctoral theses are not exactly of the ground-breaking/earth-shaking variety and that it's very important to choose a good thesis advisor, I don't think that these observations are related to the OP's query.

@Mico: You are right if you consider my post on its own. My post is, rather, a response to the few comments/posts above that put too much stress on "discovery" and "enlarging the human knowledge". I find that this may appear overwhelming to a novice like the OP.

@Mico: sorry, the comment was indeed directed to Nick. I will delete it and re-create a corrected version

@Nick: It might be a good idea to clarify "anything of value" in your post, as it can have two completely different meanings: It could simply mean that the PhD discovered/developed things that nobody knows how to benefit from yet (which I find is a natural state for research), but it could also mean that the candidate has not actually discovered anything new at all (in which case IMHO the PhD committee failed to do its job).

@Robert Buchholz I know this may be controversial but IMHO most scientific publications do not create useful knowledge. And even not all of them offer something new as often existing concepts are re-discovered. Most papers are, essentially, minor variations of the existing knowledge and for most of them we can be fairly certain that they won't be of noticeable value - not now and not in the future. With PhD theses the situation is even worse as most of them are never read again once the degree is conferred.

@Nick: I was not implying that your opinion is wrong. I was merely saying that your original statement is ambiguous.

Judging from your comments on some of the answers, you did not ask the question you want answered. Your actual question seems to be:

I am not willing to spent more than three years in a PhD program abroad. It there a way to guarantee that I will obtain the degree in that time?

The answer is: No, there is not even a way to guarantee you'll get a PhD worth having at all!
Here's the basic concept behind the PhD degree: A PhD certifies that you have demonstrated the ability to conduct independent research that produced new results. And the duration to produce new results is inherently unknowable. It may take you one year, three years, or you may not be good enough to do it at all.
Any program that is guaranteeing that you will obtain a PhD in three years is either lying, or the corresponding institution is willing to set the bar for the degree so low that the degree wouldn't have any worth, because it does not certify your ability to do anything. In the former case, you wouldn't necessarily obtain a PhD in three years; in the latter case you would essentially just be guaranteed to obtain a worthless piece of paper with your name and the text "PhD" on it. The degree would only certify that the institution stood by their guarantee to award you the degree after three years. It would not certify any ability on your part.
But I don't think the lack of a guarantee should stop you from pursuing a PhD abroad even if you are not currently willing to spent more than three years abroad: I am guessing you did not have a guarantee that you would obtain a Master'a degree either. You just had to try. And if you hit any serious problems or delay, you had to decide for yourself whether the Master's degree was still worth pursuing. It that respect, the PhD is not less certain than the Master's was. You just start despite the uncertain outcome, and you continuously evaluate whether the goal is still worth achieving along the way.

Reading more of your comments on already given answers, I think two of your underlying assumptions on this issue are wrong, and lead you to have unrealistic expectations.
The first assumption seems to be:

Master's degrees have a fixed time frame. If a PhD program does not, then that is due to organizational deficiencies on part of the supervising professor or the institution.

And thus you seem to look for an institution or supervisor that does not have that deficiency, or a way to mitigate its effects.
But there is no deficiency! A master's program can have a fixed time frame, because it only teaches stuff that is already known and has been taught before. Your job as a Master's student is to learn that pre-determined set of abilities and apply it to pre-determined problems in a pre-determined time frame.
But a PhD program is nothing like that. There is nobody telling you what to learn, and which knowledge or abilities to apply to which problem. And that lack of a structure is not a deficiency, but is the core idea of, and therefore inherent in a PhD program: A PhD certifies that you were able to produce new scientific results independently and under these uncertain conditions. If a PhD program was structured like a Master's program, the PhD degree would only certify the same abilities as the Master's degree you already have, and thus would be pointless.
Your second assumption seems to be

I got a "degree either in X years or not at all" guarantee for my Master's. Such a guarantee is useful, and I therefore want it for my PhD as well.

But that guarantee for the Master's was no guarantee of success at all. Rather, it was an additional restriction! All degrees certify that you achieved a certain level of proficiency in a given field. For your Master's, that "degree either in X years or not at all" guarantee was simply the additional restriction, that they will only give you X years to achieve that level of proficiency, and won't give you any degree at all if it takes you any longer. A PhD simply does not have that additional restriction. So not having what seems to be a guarantee actually makes obtaining the degree easier.
The bottom line is: You don't need that 3-year guarantee. It only means that somebody else is allowed to force you to abort your efforts of obtaining the degree. Not having that guarantee actually gives you the freedom to decide when and whether to abort, or to continue your efforts. If you need it, you can easily give you your own "three years at most or no degree at all" guarantee by deciding beforehand that you will leave the PhD program after three years. That would have exactly the same consequences for you as the guarantee you are trying to obtain.

Dear Robert: again you are explaining to me why this is not possible. I understand it more or less. Just from point of view of someone who should do it, and do it in foreign country: it matters to know in advance whether I am leaving somewhere for four years, vs. three years? You see? I understand your arguments. Debating against that doesn't make sense I guess and would take us far away. But to say it is impossible to design phd program which is aimed at three years, is it also true? See other comments where people say in some countries three years takes place.

One could try have program which is more aimed at three years, and say in 1.5 year applicant is evaluated to see if he/she can continue etc. More effort could be geared also towards fitting inside these three years, etc. Again these are theoretical considerations which I talk about - not sure if it makes much sense to dive into these kind of things

@user300234: I understand why it matters to you to have a definite time frame. But PhD degree requirements won't change just to make them more suitable for you. They exist in their current form to establish a certain standard of quality for that degree, and can't (and therefore won't) be change without reducing that standard.

@user300234: There are surely PhD programs that are aimed at a three year duration, but that aim doesn't really means anything. And as I argued in my original answer, it is inherently impossible to have any guaranteed duration for any program that certifies your ability to do independent original research (as is the case with PhDs).

Good answer, but I would add one provisio. One thing with PhD is that you can get caught in a "piège abscon" (I am unable to translate that at all), where you are told that "one more year and you'll be good" repeatedly. This should not happen but does, so to enforce to oneself such a "3-year and either I defend or quit" needs a very strong will and planning ahead.

One note on the "quit after 3 years" strategy: I think you would need to inform your advisor about this plan from the beginning, so that they could help you find a thesis topic that was feasible to finish in three years. But the flip side is that they might consider your plan too risky and not want to take you on as a student.

FUNDING and duration of PhD work are, as some other commenters point out, are two different things.  In Switzerland, at least, many PhD students in the sciences have 3 years of funding if they receive money from the Swiss National Science Foundation.  The Teacher Training Universities offer 4 years of funding.  Of course, how long it takes to complete a PhD program depends so much on the student and on the advisor AND on how well they work together.  Advisors can sometimes offer office space and/or additional funding to support students when their PhD work goes beyond their originally funded period.

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Is it possible to do part of my PhD remotely?
I have following situation. No good quality phd is available in my country (field: computer Science). On the other hand leaving my country for too long is also a little bit difficult for me mainly for family situation. My question is: is it not possible that I negotiate somehow with possible supervisors etc. that I do some part of my Phd remotely? Or say I visit the University for 6 month, then next 6 month I will spend in my country, etc. Or similar arrangements. I know sometimes they call such programs also Sandwich phd programs. Field is computer science so I don't need to be there in some "lab" all the time. Do you know if this is possible? And where/how can I find such programs? Who do I have to "negotiate" it with and how?

Also worth reading: Finding a research group where I can work remotely.

Are you expecting to also get funding (that is, a stipend or a salary) for the time where you are not physically present? If this is the case, I am somewhat doubtful that you will find a university which is down with that.

@xLeitix:ideally yes, but I could also agree on a reduced stipend-e.g., halved.

@user300234 This will make your search more difficult. In the universities that I am familiar with, regulations would make it pretty much impossible to pay somebody who cannot be physically present regularly. It wouldn't even be about the amount - any salary would be an administrative issue.

@xLeitix: That doesn't sound too good. In the worst case I could think about tolerating that(no pay). But let's hope for better option

Let me give you a different perspective to your question.

No good quality phd is available in my country

It is good that you aim high. But you must see things through the PHD admissions' perspective. Good universities and good PHD programs have a lot more candidates than PHD positions. Why should they choose you over the other candidates? Is your undergraduate research work that good? Are your grades excellent? Is your university reputable (probably not). If the answer to these questions is no, then the main issue is that you would not get accepted to these programs anyway, regardless of your plan to do it remotely or not.
Also do you have a MSc degree? In many countries in Europe you need a MSc degree before doing a PHD and in USA you need to pass some courses before conducting the actual PHD research. This simply (in either case) cannot be done remotely
Also from your comments I understand that you also want to have funding during your PHD (you would also agree to a reduced funding). In other words, you want someone to hire you (and pay you) to do research, coming from an unknown university, remotely, without actually having a first hand experience of how you can perform at this level, coming directly from an undergraduate university and with no industrial real-world work experience. This is too big a bet for any advisor and university to undertake, unless you have already proven yourself as an extremely talented individual. In that case, exceptions may be possible but still a remotely done PHD is still a major gamble for the advisor and the univesity. Without funding the stakes are smaller but as @xLeitix said remote PHDs do not always work that good. But I think expecting funding for a remote PHD is highly unrealistic.
The only solution I can think of, is for you to work a couple of years on site for a PHD (if you get accepted to a good PHD program) and after proving your
worth there (with some good publications) during the second-half / dissertation writing portion of your PHD you can ask / convince your advisor to work part-time / remotely from your home country.

Let's see what advice you can give now? Indeed my undergrad might be not "famous", but I have MSC from reputable University. Also one year research experience. And couple of years working outside Uni sadly (some years organizational stuff, 1-2 years programming).

@user300234 If you want to ask a different question, please do.

:dear alexandros you didn't elaborate considering my above comment

Yes, this can be done, but this has to be discussed with the school and program in advance. At previous work places, I've seen PhD students on site who were working "remotely" essentially full-time. Usually, for this to work, you need to have a "local" supervisor who is known to the PhD advisor who will be able to oversee your work.
One other important note: you will most likely be required to spend at least a certain portion of your time at the degree-granting institution, as most schools have some sort of "residency" requirement.

@aesmail:thanks for your answer aesmail. Although I doubt a bit about local advisor since I don't think there are people working (active researchers) in that field in my country.

As one data point, this (sans the local advisor) is essentially the setup we have with a student from south east Asia. It isn't going overly well, to be honest.

I would add that it is much easier to do "part of" your PhD remotely if that part is a continguous chunk rather than 6-month gaps here and there.  I've known many people who worked on their dissertations while living far away from the university they got their PhD from, but they did it in, say, the last year or two of the program, when they didn't have anything to do but write the dissertation.  It's easier to be at school for 3 years and then move away for 2 than to move back and forth every 6 months.

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Effective use of a "learning narrative" assignment in a gen ed science course
This spring I will be teaching a physics course that is new at our school. Titled "Relativity for Poets," it's a nonmathematical freshman gen ed course on Einstein's theory of relativity, and cosmology. There is no lab, and there will be only a tiny amount of traditional-style problem-solving. I'm looking for things I can have my students do that will (a) give them some practice wrestling with the (difficult) concepts, and (b) give me something other than just exams on which to base their grades.
A possibility that I've thought of is something I'll refer to as a "learning narrative." I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with this. The idea is that the student is assigned to write a 1-2 page paper on a topic that they initially had trouble with. They describe the topic, what they didn't understand, why (in hindsight) they didn't understand it, and how they overcame the difficulty. This should be written in such a way that a future student could read it and benefit from it.
Have others done anything similar to this? Was it successful? Any tips for implementing it effectively?

When I TA'ed a survey neuroscience course, we had a similar type of assignment where we asked students to select a topic from the course that was challenging for them personally and put together a (short) PowerPoint presentation on that topic as if they were going to teach it to next year's class.
Overall, I thought the assignment was a good one, and the course reviews at the end of the semester generally indicated that the students felt the same way. Many of the reviews commented on the fact that the process of thinking about how to teach the topic to someone helped solidify or clarify things for themselves. Others mentioned that it helped them learn how to learn on their own by searching the web, looking things up at the library, et cetera. Establishing and building upon this skill is key no matter what you end up doing, so I consider this the biggest positive of the assignment.
The downside seemed to be that many students struggled with the "why they didn't understand it" part. It can be frustrating to not understand something, and especially when the student doesn't plan on pursuing further study in the area (which is probably the case in a class like "Relativity for Poets"), there can be a certain lack of motivation to break through conceptual or other barriers to understanding. You might need to offer some guidance in this particular area of the assignment.
Looking back, one possible improvement might have been to assign these "learning narratives" multiple times throughout the semester. I noticed that a lot of students chose the exact same topic, which might have been because it was truly the hardest topic or because it was the easiest to make a PowerPoint on. We might have gotten more diversity in responses if we split the assignment into two (or more) parts that were due at uniform points across the semester. Plus, we might have been able to reinforce the "learning to learn" aspect of it through repetition. Of course, that's just speculation on my part.