Abstract
From a desire to boost employability beyond academia, ‘future-oriented’ doctoral programmes are now aiming to achieve many things at the same time: create great researchers but also great entrepreneurs, build the in-depth knowledge of a research degree, and also develop a breadth of ‘transferable’ skills. This chapter argues that by trying to achieve so much within a very limited time frame, this new kind of PhD risks failing to excel in any of the above. Moreover, it risks losing its distinctiveness, that is whatever makes it different from other degrees, or what constitutes the added value that it can bring to society and the labour market. The chapter discusses two flagship models of doctoral education—the Initial Training Network (ITN) in the EU and the Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship (IGERT) in the US.
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Balaban, C. (2020). Diversifying the Missions and Expectations of Doctoral Education: Are We Losing the Distinctive ‘Added Value’ of the PhD?. In: Cardoso, S., Tavares, O., Sin, C., Carvalho, T. (eds) Structural and Institutional Transformations in Doctoral Education. Issues in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38046-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38046-5_11
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