SEMINAR FOR BOLOGNA AND HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM EXPERTS Organisation and Profile of Doctoral Studies

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SEMINAR FOR BOLOGNA AND HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM
EXPERTS Organisation and Profile of Doctoral
Studies

• Salzburg Principles
• Chafic Mokbel, University of Balamand, Research
  Council, HER Expert Lebanon
• Mazen El Khatib, HER Expert Lebanon, Pierre
  Gedeon, HER Expert Lebanon,
• Amer Helwani, NTO Lebanon, Aref Soufi, NTO
  Lebanon
• Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, USEK, 11-12
  March 2013

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Outline

• History, Context and Motivation
• Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies
• Salzburg Principles and Excellence in Doctoral
  Studies
• Discussions and Perspectives

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History, Context and Motivation

• March 2005 The European Charter for Researchers
  The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of
  Researchers
• Defines general principles and requirements to
  specify the roles, responsibilities and
  entitlements of researchers as well as of
  employers and research funders
• February 2005 Bologna Seminar yields to the
  Salzburg Principles
• Seminar set to discuss the new action line EHEA
  and ERA two pillars of Knowledge-based Society
• Organizers
• Austrian federal ministry of education. Science
  and culture
• German federal ministry of education and research
• European University Association
• 300 participants, 48 universities and 25
  countries gt Large interest to contribute to
  policy debate
• Seminar discussed the European Charter for
  Researchers
• June 2010 Salzburg II Recommendations
• EUA-CDE (Council for Doctoral Education) annual
  meeting
• Free University in Berlin
• Intensive Consultation
• 220 participants, 165 institutions and 36
  countries
• Recommendations in 3 categories
• Research as the basis and the difference
• Cues for success
• Clearing the obstacles

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History, Context and Motivation

• Few Numbers (2008)
• 1.5 Millions FTE researchers in Europe
• Researchers share of the total labour market 6
  in Europe, 9 in USA and, 11 in Japan
• Share of Researchers in Business Sector 46 in
  Europe, 68 in Japan, 79 in USA
• RD intensity (percentage of GDP) 1.9 in
  Europe, 2.8 in USA, 3.4 in Japan
• 600,000 doctoral candidates in Europe 110,000
  graduating every year
• Need for more researchers and therefore to
  further develop the high quality doctoral studies
  and training

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History, Context and Motivation

• This reflected in the Europe 2020 flagship
• 1. By the end of 2011, Member States should have
  strategies in place to train enough researchers
  to meet their national RD targets and to promote
  attractive employment conditions in public
  research institutions. Gender and dual career
  considerations should be fully taken into account
  in these strategies
• 4. In 2012, the Commission will propose on the
  basis of the provisions on ERA in the New Lisbon
  Treaty a European Research Area framework and
  supporting measures to remove obstacles to
  mobility and cross-border cooperation, aiming for
  them to be in force by end 2014. They will
  notably seek to ensure through a common approach
• - quality of doctoral training, attractive
  employment conditions and gender balance in
  research careers
• - mobility of researchers across countries and
  sectors, including through open recruitment in
  public research institutions and comparable
  research career structures and by facilitating
  the creation of European supplementary pension
  funds

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History, Context and Motivation

• Key stakeholders working on Doctoral Studies and
  Training
• EUA - CDE
• LERE (League of European Research Universities)
• Coimbra group
• Thematic Inititiatives
• The ten Salzburg principles are set to guide the
  development of relevant and high quality doctoral
  studies and training

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Outline

• History, Context and Motivation
• Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies
• Salzburg Principles and Excellence in Doctoral
  Studies
• Discussions and Perspectives

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Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies

• Rapid Development of Science and Technology

Duration of PhD preparation and originality?
What to include in the 3rd cycle?
Third Cycle
Where to place the boundaries?
Second Cycle
First Cycle
Three Cycle System
Development of Science and Technology
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Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies

• Knowledge based society (economy)
• Central role to higher education and especially
  Doctoral Studies
• Balance to find between long-term and short-term
  research
• Demand for more PhD holders

Applied Research
Theoretical Research
Short-term Research
Long-term Research
Number of Researchers? Bandwidth of doctoral
programmes?
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Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies

• Globalisation
• Originality and competitiveness to be shown at
  wider scale
• Relevance to be sought at the international level
  
• Recognition a more crucial issue
• PhD candidates and researchers to be more dynamic
• Other Challenges
• Local levels of knowledge and skills
• Socioeconomic levels
• Resources allocated to research

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Outline

• History, Context and Motivation
• Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies
• Salzburg Principles and Excellence in Doctoral
  Studies
• Discussions and Perspectives

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Salzburg Principles

• i/ The core component of doctoral training is the
  advancement of knowledge through original
  research
• However, meet the increasing needs of employment
  market
• Training by research
• Provide candidates with core skills
• problem solving innovative, creative and
  critical thinking analyzing and synthesizing
  knowledge developing strategies
• Training in transferable, generic skills and
  competences should become an integral part of all
  doctoral programmes in order to meet the
  challenges of the global labour market
• ii/ Embedding in institutional strategies and
  policies
• The university is responsible for design,
  structure and organisation of its doctoral
  programmes with regulations covering
  recruitment, supervision, exams, evaluations and
  monitoring, and defence of the thesis throughout
  the university
• Orientation
• Tutoring and Advising

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Salzburg Principles

• iii/ The importance of diversity
• Diversity at all levels throughout the European
  space should be seen as a strength
• Diversity needs transparency and quality
• Discipline differences require more different
  approaches than institutional or system
  differences
• iv/ Doctoral candidates as early stage
  researchers
• In the European Charter for Researchers Early
  stage researchers are professionals who are
  trained through research in the conception or
  creation of new knowledge, products, processes,
  methods and systems, and in the management of the
  projects concerned
• Doctoral stage should be recognised as the first
  part in a professional career
• Doctoral candidates to participate at all levels
  in the University governance process

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Salzburg Principles

• v/ The crucial role of supervision and assessment
• Arrangements for supervision and assessment
  should be based on a transparent contractual
  framework of shared responsibilities between
  doctoral candidates, supervisors and the
  institution
• Who can be a supervisor?
• How often she/he meets with the candidate?
• How many candidates the supervisor can manage and
  how the research progress is monitored?
• vi/ Achieving critical mass
• Crucial to have an impact
• Bilateral and multilateral collaboration at
  local, national and international levels
• Virtual research networks

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Salzburg Principles

• vii/ Duration
• Between 3 to 4 years
• Flexibility in the duration is needed for
  discipline differences, gender issues,
• Full-time and part-time doctoral studies?
• viii/ The promotion of innovative structures
• To meet the challenge of interdisciplinary
  training and the development of transferable
  skills
• Transferable (generic professional and
  personal) skills and competences to ensure wider
  employability of doctoral candidates in different
  sectors of the economy and society communication
  and presentation skills, writing skills, project
  and time management, human resources management,
  financial resources management, teamwork, risk
  and failure management, etc
• Transferable skills and competences facilitate
  multidisciplinarity
• ECTS to be used in structured course-part of
  doctoral programmes and not for measuring
  research progress

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Salzburg Principles

• ix/ Increasing mobility
• Doctoral programmes should seek to offer
  geographical as well as interdisciplinary and
  intersectoral mobility and international
  collaboration within an integrated framework of
  cooperation between universities and other
  partners
• Several support programmes exist Marie-Curie,
  Joint doctoral programmes, Co-tutelle
• Classical obstacles exist
• Inter-diciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility
  exist
• No consensus on doctoral label
• x/ Ensuring appropriate funding
• The development of quality doctoral programmes
  and the successful completion by doctoral
  candidates requires appropriate and sustainable
  funding

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Outline

• History, Context and Motivation
• Some Challenges Facing Doctoral Studies
• Salzburg Principles and Excellence in Doctoral
  Studies
• Discussions and Perspectives

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Discussions and perspectives

• The Salzburg ten Principles aim at fostering
  formal and recognized(ii) doctoral training
  models and their well defined supervision and
  assessment processes(v) that prepare good young
  researchers(i) formally recognized as such(iv)
  with transferable skills and competences(viii)
  in an appropriate period of time(vii) and with
  an adequate financial support scheme(x) in
  fields with recognized critical mass(vi) while
  making good use of mobility(ix) and preserving
  diversity(iii)

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Discussions and perspectives
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Discussions and perspectives

• This copes with nearly all the challenges and
  clearly point out that, with the present
  socioeconomic context and with the fast
  development of science and technology, although
  research is first an individual effort, a formal
  and well thought setting is needed to make the
  best out of the doctoral studies

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Discussions and perspectives

• The optimal balance is to be found between the
  Salzburg principles

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Discussions and perspectives
Core RD Skills
Transferable competences
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Discussions and perspectives

• While the 10 Salzburg principles are suitable,
  the good balance is still to be found
• Depending on the context system, institution
• But also sector, discipline
• Is it relevant and appropriate to integrate the
  postgraduate within the third cycle?
• Is it the good timing?

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• Thank you