Abstract
Since the 1990s, globalisation and an economic model that views knowledge as a critical national resource for economic growth, innovation, prosperity, and international competitiveness have motivated governments around the world to pay attention to doctoral education. This chapter highlights the connections between governmental innovation policies and changes that have occurred in doctoral education in national/regional higher education systems (macro level) and in individual doctoral programmes (micro level) within a local university context. The predominant impetus for doctoral education reform used by governments is monetary incentives. It is argued that doctoral education worldwide is converging in the sense that top national or regional flagship programmes now have similar principles and structures, resulting in an intensified stratification of doctoral education training, and bringing about new tensions in doctoral education.
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Notes
- 1.
The numbers have been rounded up in the text; the exact numbers are presented in Table 1.
- 2.
Neoliberalism is an ideology and a policy model that emphasises the value of free market competition. The roots go back to the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century, which championed economic laissez-faire and the freedom of individuals against the excessive power of government.
- 3.
Science Without Borders was a large-scale, nationwide scholarship programme offered by Brazil’s Ministry of Education (MEC) and Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) through their respective funding agencies (CAPES and CNP). The programme sought to strengthen and expand the initiatives of science and technology, innovation, and competitiveness through the international mobility of undergraduate and graduate students and researchers. Its primary goal was to qualify 100,000 Brazilian students and researchers in top universities worldwide through 2018. Due to federal spending cuts in higher education, this very successful programmes ended in 2016.
- 4.
A recent example is the search for Amazon’s second headquarters in the United States, during which Amazon specified, among other criteria, closeness to an excellent university and training of high-quality professionals.
- 5.
The key element of policy borrowing is the conscious adoption of a policy from one context to another, led by the belief that foreign educational policies and models might solve existing or emerging problems (see G. Steiner-Khansi, 2016, p. 382).
- 6.
The European Council of Doctoral Education (EU-CDE) is a subunit of the European University Association.
- 7.
The FNR required an assessment of the implementation status in 2017–2018 of the Luxembourg National Quality Framework for Doctoral Training.
- 8.
Mercosur is an economic and political bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
- 9.
Doctoral supervisor is synonym for the US term doctoral student’s adviser.
- 10.
Professional competencies are a cluster of related abilities, commitments, knowledge, and skills that enable a person to act effectively in a job or situation. Competencies acquired can only be demonstrated in context. This term is often used synonymously with genericskills, which are used to carry out complex activities or job functions involving cognitive, technical, and/or interpersonal skills.
- 11.
The code of conduct for the recruitment of researchers consists of a set of general principles and requirements that should be followed by employers and/or funders when appointing or recruiting researchers. These principles and requirements should ensure observance of values such as transparency of the recruitment process and equal treatment of all applicants, in particular with regard to the development of an attractive, open, and sustainable European labour market for researchers, and are complementary to those outlined in the European Charter for Researchers (see https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code).
- 12.
See, for example, the Goethe University in Frankfurt, GRADE, and the Graduate Academy at the University of Heidelberg.
- 13.
An interesting critique of project-funding is presented by Torka (2018).
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Nerad, M. (2020). Governmental Innovation Policies, Globalisation, and Change in Doctoral Education Worldwide: Are Doctoral Programmes Converging? Trends and Tensions. 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_3
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