VLIR

There has been concern about the overproduction of PhDs, but this does not mean PhDs should be reduced. Instead they should be reformed to increase the transferable skills they offer, with an emphasis placed on developing project management skills.

Today, the Ph.D. degree in Flanders no longer provides direct entry into an academic career at a Flemish universities. As career opportunities for the highly skilled become more diversified across national and sector boundaries, ‘success’ in Ph.D. investments cannot only be measured by evaluating Ph.D. completion rates. Researchers who ‘drop out’  and embark on other careers may still contribute  significantly to the knowledge economy challenges, but the return for the university’s investment in their potential is small. Differentiating Ph.D. support according to disciplines and focussing on transferable skills development for all researchers ought to be a priority in all universities...

During the conference The Formative Years of Scholars, a range of topics was covered in the presentations and in the discussions and comments throughout the meeting. Besides developments inside the knowledge system, structural developments on the national, European and global level as well as labour market demands, and the content and structure of doctoral programmes, the further careers of post docs were discussed as was the question of mobility.

Human resources are recognised as being key to the creation, commercialisation and diffusion of innovation. Among them, doctorate holders are not only the most qualified in terms of educational attainment, but also those who are specifically trained to conduct research. Not much is known however about their career and mobility patterns on the labour market...

Doctoral training has gained increasing importance in the context of the Bologna Process since the Berlin Communiqué (2003) which, on a recommendation from EUA, included doctoral programmes as the ‘third cycle’ following the bachelor and master levels...