Around 70 stakeholders and policymakers gathered in December 2009 at the University of Zagreb for the Second EUA Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE) Workshop which focussed on structuring doctoral programmes as a means for improving Europe's doctoral education.
The introduction of structured programmes in doctoral education continues to gain momentum in higher education institutions across Europe - but implementation also poses many challenges. Amongst the conclusions to come from the EUA-CDE meeting was the underlying need for all institutions - regardless of their size - to achieve critical mass with their doctoral programmes. This was considered crucial in order to help build doctoral communities based on the institutional research priorities, to improve overall research quality and productivity, to increase accountability, and to improve funding opportunities.
Participants stressed, however, that critical mass could be attained using different strategies and it was a question of 'content rather than numbers' (e.g. by building networks and clusters or using inter- and intra-disciplinary co-operation). It was also underlined during the meeting that dedicated and sustainable funding would be crucial for the future of European doctoral education.
EUA's Salzburg Principles on doctoral education - launched in 2005 - underline research as the core component of doctoral education and connect this with a call for stronger institutional strategies and structures to support this research. In the past five years, universities have been the main driver of the major reforms in doctoral education and EUA feels therefore that now is a good time to take a thorough look at the reforms being implemented and assess how the Salzburg principles are being used in practice.
The EUA and EUA-CDE plan a series of consultations with the members during the coming months in order to develop the original principles through the experiences of their implementation. Further information will be published through the EUA newsletter (email: info@eua.be) and website.