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CIRGE

Category: Forces and Forms Networks

Academics gathered to discusses the major societal forces that are shaping doctorate education

Maresi Nerad, founder of CIRGE, kicked off the fifth conference “Forces and Forms of Doctoral Education” this morning in Hanover-Germany. This initiative was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and co-organized by the Bremen Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSS), the University of Bremen, conjointly with CIRGE. Quite unique in its format, the conference sought to gather experts from the five continents to identify the major societal, economic and cultural forces that are changing the forms of doctorate education worldwide.

In the inauguration speech, Dr. Nerad invited the participants to work together on policy recommendations for doctoral education across our diverse continents and across diverse doctoral system, without attempting to homogenize our differences, but actively learning from each other to create a future that prepares a next generation of leaders, scholars, engaged citizens, and funders of doctoral education”.

See more details about the conference here

 

Conference: Forces and Forms of Doctoral Education

When: September 5 – 6, 2019

Where: Herrenhausen Castle | Hannover, Germany

Organized  by CIRGE and the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Science

Sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation

See Preliminary Program here

 

Conference background

During the last decade there have been significant changes in doctoral education worldwide: In many countries, the numbers of doctoral candidates and doctoral granting institutions have increased to help drive both national innovation and research performance of individual institutions, especially in Asia. Worldwide, there is a greater focus on diverse employment prospects and
transferable skills of doctorate holders and postdocs. At the same time, the world is changing faster than ever.  Seemingly adverse developments with yet unknown effects, namely digitization as potential driver of progress as well as increased insecurity and the simultaneous deterioration of democracies aligned with the rise of populist or fundamentalist movements characterize the second decade of the 21st century. Training doctoral candidates to become the next generation of creative, critical, autonomous and responsible intellectual risk takers is more essential than ever in these times of epochal challenges and unsettling changes.

Now is the time to review the changes in doctoral education, their successes and failures, and to explore ways forward for training new generations of researchers to become future leaders in developing and developed societies.

Conference objectives

  • discuss, enhance, and disseminate future oriented advancement of doctoral education and related policies
  • assessing where we stand on core values of doctoral education and research
  • taking stock of ongoing developments and changes in doctoral education worldwide
  • looking forward and setting a policy agenda on how we can best shape doctoral education in a socially responsible way, not only in our own national systems, but at a globalscale for driving innovation in public and private sectors.

More details

The event will be opened by the Secretary General of the  VW Foundation, Dr. Wilhelm Krull and a keynote address by Professor Jonathan Jansen from South Africa, University of Stellenbosch, former Vice chancellor of the University of the Free State, during tumultuous times, and also former chair of the evidence-based study of PhD education by the Academy of Science of South Africa.

A special reception hosted by the VW Foundation will take place on Thursday after the first conference day.

Panel discussions and work in small groups will investigate major topics pertinent for doctoral education at our times and will critically discuss policy recommendations resulting from a preparatory workshop from a group of experts from all continents. Among them are:

  • Prof. Ahmed Bawa (Physics), Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Universities of South Africa,
  • Prof. Roshada Hashim (Biochemistry) Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation, Universiti Sains Islam, Malaysia,
  • Prof. Reinhard Jahn (Biology), Director, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany,
  • Prof. Suzanne Ortega (Sociology) President of the Council of Graduate Schools (USA/North America),
  • Prof. Richard Strugnell (Epidemiology) former Pro Vice-Chancellor for Graduate Studies, The University of Melbourne.

A call for travel grants for Early Career Researchers will be launched in October 2018.
Registration will begin March 2019.

Setting International Research Agendas

Forces and Forms of Doctoral Education Worldwide workshops have contributed to develop research agendas among more than 60 experts on doctoral education from the six continents.   This effort, coordinated and lead by CIRGE, has encouraged and generated a multi-national perspective of the issues that are re-shaping the doctoral education around the world.

See in the detail the outcomes of these workshops

Forces & Forms I on  Doctoral Education   – Seattle – United States 2005

Forces & Forms II  on Doctoral Education – Melbourne –  Australia  2007

Forces & Forms III on Doctoral Education – Kassel – Germany  2009

Forces and Forms of Change in Doctoral Education Worldwide and Their Impact on South East Asia- 2010

NSF Welcome – Carol Stoel

Welcome to the first day of the conference! Despite being unable to join us, Carol Stoel, from the NSF, was kind enough to prerecord a welcome statement for us. Her speech, which will be played at the conference this morning, will serve as a welcome to those of you who are following along via the Internet.

Toward a Global PhD? now in Chinese

CIRGE’s book Toward a Global PhD? (University of Washington, 2008), edited by Maresi Nerad and Mimi Heggelund has been getting national and international coverage.  It was recently translated into Chinese and published in China.  In addition, the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 includes a sidebar that displays the global trends in doctoral education identified in the book.