EUA Council for Doctoral Education
The Doctoral Debate
“The Doctoral Debate” is an online platform featuring original articles with commentary and analysis on doctoral education in Europe. Articles focus on trending topics in doctoral education and state-of-the-art policies and practices. The Debate showcases voices and views from EUA-CDE members and partners.
All views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of EUA Council for Doctoral Education. If you would like to respond to this article by writing your own piece, please see The Doctoral Debate style guidelines and contact the CDE team to pitch your idea.
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21 Jun. 2022Social background as a challenge for doctoral education In order to better support first-generation academics, it is important to deal with the particular hurdles that many of them face on their academic career path. The four most important of these are presented in this article, which also shows why universities should do more for this group. Read more
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13 May. 2022Rethinking doctoral education for careers within and beyond the academy The training of doctoral candidates remains largely oriented towards academia. Given that increasing numbers of doctorate holders will eventually work beyond the academy, we need to rethink doctoral education. This article proposes several recommendations (‘rethinks’) emerging from empirical studies targeting collaboration, transferable skills and the relations between doctoral candidates and their future employers. Read more
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09 May. 2022Doctoral education in the pandemic and beyond As in almost every part of society, the Covid-19 pandemic came as a shock to doctoral education in Europe. Universities pivoted remarkably quickly, within days, to counter the enforced closure of facilities with online provision across almost all activities. And as the world attempts to move forward, under the partial shield of vaccination, it is possible to take stock of the impact upon doctoral candidates and the people and structures that support them and to assess what the experience means for the future. Read more
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09 Mar. 2022Doctoral education in France: the views of doctoral candidates and their supervisors A national field survey in France provides valuable information for enhancing the quality of doctoral training. Conducted by the French national network of doctoral colleges (France PhD) in 2021, the survey also highlights the essential contribution of doctoral candidates to national research production, their high level of satisfaction, and the importance of teamwork in doctoral supervision. Read more
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21 Oct. 2021The road towards structured doctoral education: insights from Ireland Key players in Irish higher education have published a study about the implementation of the Irish National Framework for Doctoral Education. EUA expert Helene Peterbauer provides first-hand insights from the study and makes two recommendations for higher education systems seeking to enhance their post-graduate research provision. Read more
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21 Sep. 2021Researchers should assert their intellectual rights The Rights Retention Strategy developed by cOAlition S can be used by researchers to affirm their rights to their own work and deposit an Open Access copy of their paper in a repository. It allows researchers to reuse and share their work as they see fit, making it immediately accessible to the widest possible audience. Read more
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21 Jun. 2021A framework for collaborative doctoral education within Europe The Bologna Process and the Salzburg principles have inspired European consensus about the aims of doctoral education. However, their implementation has differed widely and international collaboration in doctoral programmes is challenging. This article introduces the ORPHEUS (Organisation for PhD Education in Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the European System) Best Practices for PhD training and proposes a framework for doctoral education that is both sufficiently flexible to allow for diversity and robust enough to allow for collaboration. Read more
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20 Jan. 2021Comparing apples with oranges: the career paths of doctorate holders Numerous initiatives are set up to gain insight into the (non-academic) careers of doctorate holders. Unfortunately, these initiatives use different methodologies, target specific groups and tap into different career aspects, making it difficult to make comparisons across groups, universities, countries and time. This article offers recommendations on how to get optimal insight into doctorate holders’ careers. Read more
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12 Oct. 2020Enabling FAIR research data management through doctoral education Research data management following the findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) principles has quickly evolved into a major priority of European research policy. Drawing lessons from research in the FAIRsFAIR project, EUA project manager Lennart Stoy reflects on what doctoral education can contribute to this endeavour. Read more
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07 Sep. 2020Towards a global doctorate? Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 crisis, EUA-CDE Steering Committee Member Hans-Joachim Bungartz looks at the world of doctoral education and reflects on the importance of location, the institutional context and local supervision as meetings can be organised online anywhere. This piece briefly depicts the issue and launches a very relevant discussion on global doctorates. Read more