EUA Council for Doctoral Education

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To foster transferable skills for careers beyond academia, doctoral schools must make sure they are properly supported and recognised

28 October 2026 | Massimiliano Zattin, University of Padova | Ann MacPhail, University of Limerick

How can we best identify the capabilities doctoral candidates most need, consider how provision could be improved and reflect on the roles of universities and supervisors?

Transferable skills have been part of the European conversation on doctoral education for two decades. They are firmly rooted in the Salzburg Principles and are now a familiar feature of many doctoral programmes. However, the 2025 EUA-CDE survey ‘Doctoral collaboration with society: drivers, success factors and ways forward’ indicates that many leaders in doctoral education believe universities can still do more to foster these capabilities.

Our discussions with the European doctoral education community have produced no single model – nor should they. Institutional structures and disciplinary cultures differ widely. Nevertheless, several shared elements have emerged.

Start with the skills doctoral candidates already have

Communication, decision making, leadership, project management and entrepreneurship are prominent skills in this discussion. These are often labelled ‘transferable’, with the implication that they are not specific to one academic discipline or research topic, but can be applied across different contexts, careers, sectors and professional roles. Doctoral candidates practice many of them every day: they define problems, manage complex projects, communicate uncertainty, navigate setbacks, collaborate across boundaries and make decisions with incomplete information.

An effective approach begins by making these capabilities visible. Leading a research project can become an explicit opportunity to develop project management and leadership skills. Presenting to different audiences can be treated as more than dissemination: it can be practice in translating specialist knowledge.

Hackathons, mentoring, coaching and collaborative challenges can create spaces in which doctoral candidates apply expertise under new constraints. Engagement with industry, public bodies and civil society organisations can likewise help candidates understand how research, organisations and management operate beyond the university context.

The point is not to turn every research activity into a competency checklist. Rather, it is to help candidates recognise, articulate and extend what they are learning through the doctorate. That ability to describe their own capabilities is crucial when moving between sectors.

Move from stand-alone courses to co-designed doctoral models

Courses remain valuable, and credited provision can signal that skills development is a legitimate part of doctoral education. Quality, however, matters more than quantity. A large catalogue of generic workshops will achieve little if candidates experience the training as peripheral, poorly timed or disconnected from the realities of their research and careers.

Provision can take many forms: online or in person, centralised or discipline-specific, intensive or distributed across the doctoral journey. But the most promising institutional model may be neither solely discipline-specific nor centralized.

A discipline-specific approach may struggle to reach all candidates or to overcome entrenched disciplinary expectations, while a centralized approach may not cater for individual needs. Universities therefore need a common framework and clear expectations, combined with enough flexibility for doctoral schools, programmes and candidates to shape relevant practices and experiences.

Co-design can help bridge this divide. Doctoral candidates should have a voice in proposing what transferable skills are offered and how learning is captured and subsequently recognised. University alumni and societal partners can work with candidates to test assumptions about career needs, contribute authentic cases and provide mentoring or job-shadowing opportunities.

Industrial and collaborative doctorates offer particularly rich learning environments. However, interaction with employers and other societal actors should not be confined to these two formats.

Recognise research supervision as a professional practice

The strongest message concerns research supervision.

Even excellent initiatives on transferable skills will have limited impact if doctoral candidates receive an implicit message that anything beyond working on the thesis is a distraction. Research supervisors have significant influence over how doctoral candidates use their time and how they understand the purpose of the doctorate and, in turn, their attitudes can legitimise professional development or quietly discourage it.

This does not mean asking research supervisors to become career advisers or to encourage doctoral candidates to take every form of training available. Rather, it is about research supervisors helping candidates recognise the value of transferable skills and discuss development needs, direct them towards appropriate opportunities and allow reasonable space for participation.

Dedicated development programmes offer research supervisors an opportunity to learn about how they can best encourage and support candidates’ upskilling needs. Career awareness and the capacity to encourage transferable skills are central to the role of a research supervisor and should therefore be integral to any professional development opportunities.

Make universities and doctoral schools accountable for professional development

Universities and doctoral schools must create conditions in which professional development of doctoral candidates and research supervisors is expected, accessible and worthwhile. This includes setting an institutional framework, assuring the quality of provision, communicating its value and ensuring that doctoral candidates from different disciplines and backgrounds can participate.

Universities also need robust ways to determine what to offer. Dialogue with employers is important, while acknowledging that labour-market responsiveness should not be reduced to chasing short-term lists of ‘fashionable’ skills.

University alumni, industry and public or non-profit partners can help institutions understand changing contexts, as doctoral candidates and research supervisors contribute insight into the disciplinary needs of employers. This can lead to reciprocal and recurring conversations rather than a unidirectional, a one-time consultation.

Universities must also consider whether successful doctoral education is defined only by the delivery of a thesis, or by the multiple skill sets that doctorate candidates are equipped with to contribute meaningfully to research and society.

The thesis remains the central original contribution of the doctorate., But if it becomes the sole measure of success, universities risk overlooking the potential they have to develop individuals who can contribute meaningfully to academia, industry, public bodies and civil society organisations.

Create a culture of professional development in doctoral education

Coherence is therefore central to changing how we think about transferable skills, as well as offering opportunities to experience it.

Research practice, formal training, career exploration, external engagement and research supervision should reinforce one another. Doctoral candidates need opportunities to learn, apply and reflect; research supervisors need preparation and clear expectations; institutions need to take responsibility for the overall environment for doctoral education and professional development.

We need to stop presenting transferable skills only as preparation for an alternative to an academic career. Communication, collaboration, leadership, critical thinking and project management are essential within academia as well as beyond it. These skills enable researchers to work across disciplines and sectors, lead teams, engage society and make knowledge useful.

Note: This article is based on a roundtable on ‘Transferable skills for careers beyond academia’ moderated by the authors during the 2026 EUA-CDE Annual Meeting in Galway, Ireland.