send via emailRethinking doctoral training for life beyond academia
Half of all doctoral students won’t become academics, yet most of them are trained as if they will. A European project aims to change this by emphasising the value of also teaching doctoral students the skills they will need to be successful in industry
“It’s about raising awareness of the value of a doctoral education carried out in collaboration with industry,” said Lidia Borrell-Damian, co-ordinator of the DOC-CAREERS project and senior programme manager at the European University Association (EUA).
The EUA, with help from EIRMA and other organisations, has been examining the relationship between doctoral training in Europe and the employability of PhDs in the public and private sectors. The work began at the request of the European Commission.
The idea is to demonstrate to educational institutions and policymakers the value of initiatives to encourage greater business participation in doctoral programmes.
The project aims to identify opportunities, benefits, structural barriers and problems in university/business co-operation
The project also aims to identify opportunities, benefits, structural barriers and problems in university/business co-operation schemes across a broad range of disciplines in three fields: science, engineering and technology; biotechnology, medical and life sciences; and economics and social sciences.
It has involved case studies of doctoral programmes that teach transferable skills, company interviews and workshops. It has heard from 34 universities in 14 European countries. It has also heard from 31 companies, 28 of them EIRMA members, chosen to represent a diversity of industrial sectors and locations. The detailed list of participants is available here.
Background
Doctoral training matters because the shift to open innovation is making it increasingly important for industry to work effectively with academia. Companies need to be aware of leading-edge research, and to be able to develop direct contact and mutual trust with academia through a variety of collaborative approaches. Academics need to understand the discipline of business life to work with industry. Newly qualified PhDs need to recognise that they are likely to have to work in collaborations between industry and academia during their careers, whether they stay in academia or enter industry.
Focus on four topics
The project focuses on four topics: the development of transferable skills and employability; the extent of industrial/academic collaboration in current doctoral programmes; improving mobility as a way of enhancing employability; and better data gathering to help track the careers of doctoral candidates.
Some doctoral programmes now train in a wide range of skills, such as the ability to work in a team, communicate with non-specialists, understand customers and be entrepreneurial, to go with the usual deep technical proficiency of a PhD.
Doctoral education undertaken with an external partner brings insights into the private sector and real-life research problems
“Doctoral education undertaken with an external partner develops additional skills that are not there when the individual is educated in a purely academic environment,” said Borrell-Damian. “It brings insights into the private sector and real-life research problems, the ability to deal with both academic and non-academic mindsets, expands networking and enhances employability opportunities, especially outside academia.”
Varying opinions about the value of these skills emerged during the interviews with companies. Some companies want people for the deep knowledge and skills they have developed during their doctorates, and are prepared to train them in the softer skills. Others want people with the extra skills that an industrial PhD brings.
Doctoral candidates, for their part, value the broader employment opportunities that PhDs linked to industry can provide. But some doubt whether the doctoral system needs to include specific training on transferable skills, and think they could be acquired once employed.
Doctoral education can also change attitudes in both academia and enterprise about collaboration and so foster innovation, helping to overcome prejudices on both sides. Public policy support for such collaborative approaches to doctoral education can facilitate co-operation and improve awareness of IPR, to the benefit of industry, academia and candidates.
The project has also considered the mobility of PhDs. Mobility can help improve employability by exposing candidates to many different environments, roles, people and cultures. The research found that mobility between sectors, institutions and in and out of industry and academia needs to be embedded in career development strategies. Existing research on the topic found that mobility is not always recognised as an important part of career development, and can result in creating serious social and curricular barriers for those who want to move back and forth between academia and industry.
European universities don’t do enough to track the careers of the people to whom they grant doctorates
The research has also found that European universities don’t do enough to track the careers of the people to whom they grant doctorates. Institutions should track their doctoral graduates as they begin to take significant roles at institutional, national and international level, and so give a doctoral candidates a better idea of their employment options.
Going further…
The DOC-CAREERS project is coming to an end and the European University Association will issue a final report in early 2009. Its initial conclusions support diversity in doctoral education, and suggest that universities should adapt doctoral programmes to match the job opportunities available to their doctoral candidates.
It also says that academics should recognise that those who want to move out of academia into industry are making an equally valid career choice as those who remain.