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In French, a DEA (diplôme d'études approfondies, or "diploma of advanced studies") is a former postgraduate degree.

In France, The DEA was a 1-2 years degree taken after a maîtrise (4-year French undergraduate program) in a university prior to entering a doctoral program. The DEA was generally the first year of a doctoral program and is sometimes referred to as a "first doctoral degree". It is generally equivalent to the North American "All But Dissertation" or ABD status within a doctoral program or a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) or Master of Research (M.Res.) degree. But in the French-speaking universities in Switzerland the DEA or DESS (Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées) are 1-2 years degrees taken after a Licence (4-year Swiss undergraduate degree) and are equivalent to the Master's degree in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

The DEA and DESS exist in many other countries which apply the French education model with some minor differences such as Quebec, Belgium, Luxembourg, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia and most Francophone countries.

In the hard sciences, it generally consisted of a number of courses, with examinations and grades, followed by an internship in a scientific laboratory. The students would then write a short thesis about the scientific work they did in their internship, and defend this thesis in front of a committee. The grades of the examinations and, if possible, the internship, were used to rank students in order to select those eligible for funding for doctoral studies. Students that would follow up with a Doctorat (Ph.D.) would generally do it in the same laboratory as their internship. In Europe, the DEA's degrees are progressively subsumed into the Bologna process Master's degrees and research-oriented MAS (Master of Advanced Studies).