Doctoral Education in Europe: Trends, Issues, Challenges

The 21st Century Doctorate – sharing European developments

Thomas Ekman Jørgensen18 March 2011

Scotland House, Brussels

The revolution in European doctoral education

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What is the revolution about?

All about institutional responsibility

’De-privatisation’ of doctoral education Providing institutional framework (doctoral schools) Embedding in overall strategies

• Taking account for where the institution is (capacity) and where it wants to go (capacity building and development of mission)

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Salzburg Basic Principles

The basis for the reforms

Original ten principles from 2005 – outcomes of an EUA-led project and a Bologna seminar The doctorate is research-based Importance of institutional strategies Diversity

Included in the Bologna Bergen Communiqué 2005

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The EUA-Council for Doctoral Education (CDE)

What it is: Part of the European University Association (EUA)

• 850 universities and rectors’ conferences in 47 countries• Developing evidence-based policies• Advocating these policies• Promoting development of universities as institutions

The CDE is a membership service focused on doctoral education

• Development of doctoral schools• Doctorate-specfic policy development

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The Council for Doctoral Education

Geographical distribution of members (20 UK – 1 Scottish, 1 Welsh)

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CDE activities

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Membership activities- Workshops,

newsletter, networking

Stakeholder dialogue

- EU and globalRecommendations

and policy development

Trends

Professionalisation of management – moving from building programmes to implementing institutional structures The German (DFG) example of ’research training

groups’ (since 1990) and ’graduate schools’ (2005)• Research training groups focuses on research

environment and training options• Graduate Schools (the excellence initiative) includes

”Convincing models of selection, qualification and supervision” as well as ”professionel management” and ”alignment with institutional strategies”

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Trends II

Implementation of internal procedures

Supervision (rules and/or guidelines) Data collection (national and institutional systems) Taught courses (transferable skills/discipline-

specific training)• 49 % in TRENDS V, 72 % TRENDS 2010

Collaborations with international and/or non-university sector partners

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Issues: Salzburg II

5 years of rapid implementation of the Salzburg Principles, need to gather the experiences

Policy document based on consultations with CDE members

Main points from the document: The doctorate is and must be research based Space for individual development Autonomy for the institution to choose mission and strategy

and to set up the appropriate structures…10…

Challenges

Many different levels of progress with different challenges Autonomy: increasing political attention leading to

new legislation – temptation to over-regulate Over-structuring: institutions focusing too much on

taught courses and micro-management Under-structuring: ’window-dressing’ – each

professor gets a ’doctoral school’ QA: Finding doctorate-specific QA procedures and

indicators that take into account research environment and institutional structures

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ARDE (Accountable Research Environments for Doctoral Education)

New EUA-CDE project looking at QA in doctoral education’

Survey on external and internal procedures, indicators and ongoing reforms (launched February 2011)

Focus groups meetings (fall 2011, spring 2012)

Workshop September 2012: part of the EUA-CDE ’Doctoral Week’ at Karolinska Institute Stockholm

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Thank you for your attention