Podcast: New report offers recommendations to improve doctoral education across the globe

November 5, 2019

An international group of researchers and leaders of doctoral education recently released a report with seven recommendations to improve doctoral education worldwide following a September convening organized by the University of Washington College of Education’s Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE). 

In a new podcast, Professor Maresi Nerad, founding director of CIRGE, discussed the report and its recommendations, which were unveiled at the convening in Hannover, Germany.

“In the last 20 years the world has changed, and specifically the notion of the knowledge economy has become very been sought after and pursued by many governments around the world,” Nerad said. “Doctoral education is seen as educating the future innovators in many sectors of society and so governments want their universities and colleges to become local and national economic drivers.”

Because of these changes, doctoral education has taken a key place in governmental policymaking, Nerad said, including an increasing diversity of doctoral programs and attention to program quality. 

The seven recommendations in the report, which together aim to enhance the development of researchers of the future around the globe and to develop a more inclusive and respectful research environment, are:

  1. Establish a global joint value system for doctoral education based on an ecology of knowledges which recognizes and seeks to overcome existing inequalities in the access to doctoral education and the provision of knowledge.        
  2. Foster diverse ways of operating – embracing diversity of cultures, people and universities.
  3. Encourage diverse forms of mobility to develop multiple careers and ensure a more balanced distribution of talent around the globe.
  4. Ensure that the key contribution of the arts, humanities and social sciences research and doctoral education gets strong support.
  5. Support more research on doctoral education for evidence-based decision-making on doctoral education around the globe.
  6. Advance the institutional environment for doctoral education continuously.
  7. The pivotal goal of doctoral education must be and remain the development of original, responsible and ethical thinkers, and the generation of new and original ideas and knowledge.

Over several months prior to the September conference, five expert working groups produced position papers which were presented and discussed in Hannover.

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Contact

Maresi Nerad, Professor Emeritus of Education
mnerad@uw.edu

Dustin Wunderlich, Director of Marketing and Communications
206-543-1035, dwunder@uw.edu