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Diversifying the Missions and Expectations of Doctoral Education: Are We Losing the Distinctive ‘Added Value’ of the PhD?

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Structural and Institutional Transformations in Doctoral Education

Part of the book series: Issues in Higher Education ((IHIGHER))

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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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Corina Balaban

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  1. Corina Balaban
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Correspondence to Corina Balaban .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES), Lisbon, Portugal

    Sónia Cardoso , Orlanda Tavares  & Cristina Sin ,  & 

  2. Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), Matosinhos, Portugal

    Sónia Cardoso , Orlanda Tavares , Cristina Sin  & Teresa Carvalho , ,  & 

  3. Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Teresa Carvalho

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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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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38045-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38046-5

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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