Doctoral education has undergone increased professionalisation over the past two decades, a new survey indicates, although whether candidates are staff, students or both remains unclear.
Over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic rise in the prevalence of doctoral schools, conducted by the European University Association’s Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE).
These are defined as “an organisational structure dedicated to the coordination and support of doctoral programmes that provides comprehensive research training and resources for the career development of doctoral programmes”.
In 2005, 29 per cent of responding institutions had doctoral schools, a figure that has risen to 89 per cent in 2025.
The role of doctoral schools, however, remains “very diverse”, the EUA said. The most common responsibilities described by respondents were quality assurance of doctoral programmes and the provision of courses for doctoral candidates, each delivered by 77 per cent of doctoral schools.
Other roles performed by doctoral schools at more than half of the responding institutions included admissions and recruitment, management of doctoral programme design, funding and financial aid, well-being services and research support.
Almost all institutions say they now have quality assurance in place for doctoral education, although the reported approaches differed, with 59 per cent employing an internal system and 36 per cent relying on an external organisation; only 5 per cent say they have no formal quality assurance measures in place.
Across all doctoral programmes, most institutions – 90 per cent of respondents – say they have rules or guidelines governing the appointment of?doctoral supervisors, while 86 per cent have rules on the formal reporting by candidates of their activities and 71 per cent have rules regarding formal feedback from supervisor to candidate.
These rules and guidelines have become more prevalent since a similar EUA-CDE survey in 2017-2018, with each category increasing in prevalence by about 10 per cent.
Leaders at 217 universities, spanning 37 countries, were surveyed for the report, Doctoral education in Europe today, which comes 20 years after the Salzburg Principles, a series of recommendations for?PhD reform, which were established as part of the Bologna Process.
Only 15 per cent of respondents say they have implemented obligatory?training for supervisors?in all programmes, while half say they provided voluntary training. “This suggests that universities generally allow supervisors the discretion to participate in training rather than establishing it as a mandatory requirement,” the report says.
Despite a general increase in professionalisation, the?status of doctoral candidates?remains diverse across European institutions, with student status the most common. Asked whether candidates have student, early-stage researcher or employee status – with the ability to choose more than one answer – 86 per cent said they had student status, 52 per cent said they were early-stage researchers and 50 per cent said they were employees.
Aleksandra Kanjuo-Mr?ela, chair of the EUA-CDE steering committee, said the survey results indicate “an increasing institutionalisation of doctoral education and various ways of strengthening its quality”.
“These developments reflect a strong alignment with the original aspirations of the Salzburg Principles,” Kanjuo-Mr?ela continued. “Across Europe, universities have embraced these goals and implemented significant reforms that foster a more supportive and responsive environment for researchers at the beginning of their careers.”
请先注册再继续
为何要注册？
- 注册是免费的，而且十分便捷
- 注册成功后，您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
- 订阅我们的邮件
已经注册或者是已订阅？
