I have a question that I have not found anything related on any site that only applies to this group of people: "People of origin from Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal or Sephardic, who are pursuing a PhD in Spain."
In many European countries such as Poland (where I reside) or Czech Republic (where a person I know resides) your studies as a master or doctoral student (not undergraduate) count as half of residence time in these countries and in countries like The Netherlands, if you pursue a PhD (strictly a PhD), your years of residence are counted as full-time residing in that place.
Due to the previous examples, if you pursue a PhD in Poland or Czechia for 4 years, it means: "You have lived 2 years and if you learn Polish (B1+) and work for 3 years more then you are eligible for the permanent residence card."
And in The Netherlands, if you study 4 years, pass the integration test, work 1 year more and learn Dutch (B1+) you are eligible apply for the permanent residence card.
Now my question is:
What is the situation in Spain? Does the doctoral student's time count towards to your citizenship?
Because I read that in certain articles the following:
"In the case of nationals of origin of Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal or Sephardim, they may apply for Spanish nationality at the time of serving two years of legal and continued residence in Spain , and immediately prior to the request."
*Source in Spanish: Nacionalidad española, Gobierno de España ©Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Unión Europea y Cooperación* at 2019-12-02 16:39
The time as a "doctoral student" is not something clear in most of cases and less their status (in The Netherlands you get researcher's visa, not a student's one). I only found that if you're a regular student in Spain (not a PhD) your time is not counted.
And that makes sense, since generally, when you're a regular student, you often have a scholarship or you're paying your studies; technically, you tend to be exempt of paying taxes. And that point of the taxes is where there is a big difference between a PhD researcher and a regular student.
Also, as a PhD researcher, you might need to teach certain hours, work on your research full-time, write and do scientific papers and rarely you will receive some classes since in theory you're becoming expert in one specific field of science. Most of time, you're solving a particular problem for a company, government, the university or a organization. Let's say: "To design an algorithm for the detection of breast cancer with Machine Learning".
In most of European countries, a "doctoral student" is considered a researcher inside the universities. A kind of worker since they pay taxes, solve a particular problem for certain organization and scholarships are uncommon (Canada, the US, Australia, etc. They are not the rule) because even in Marie Curie, which provides many of the EU "scholarships", for instance, they are considered jobs not scholarships as you can see in the image below.
Have any of you heard about it? Or do you have any idea?