Andrea Kottmann

Reform of Doctoral Training in Europe

European countries was strongly criticised (Kivinen, Ahola & Kaipainen, 1999, Sadlak 2004). Critics claimed that doctoral education would lack efficiency, as it would not produce a sufficient number of PhD holders who would be well prepared for the labour market. The lack of transparency in admission, selection and quality assessment was also criticised (Kehm, 2007, p. 315). Enders & de Weert (2004, p. 129ff) point to several issues that challenge the forms and conditions of doctoral education. The changing job markets for PhD holders, the changes in knowledge production, the internationalisation of higher education and the ‘blurring boundaries’ between different forms and areas of research generated stronger interest in, but also critique of doctoral education. Until the late 1990s, critique and several reforms across Europe were mostly at the national level. We find a dramatic change at the beginning of the new millennium. Following the 2003 Berlin Communique by the Bologna Follow-Up Group and the Salzburg Principles on doctoral education by the European University Association (EUA), attempts to reform doctoral education clearly moved from the national to the European level. The 2003 Berlin Communique can be seen as a starting point for this shift in the discussion. It stated that doctoral studies should be regarded as a third cycle in the Bologna Process.1 The Salzburg principles on doctoral education in 2005 formulated general guidelines for doctoral education which included the general nature of doctoral education, the institutional responsibilities for doctoral education, duration of doctoral studies, the status of doctoral students as early researchers or aspects of supervision and funding (EUA, 2007, p. 21ff).

Dropout and completion in higher education in Europe: main report

Improving completion and reducing dropout in higher education are key concerns for higher education in Europe. This study on dropout and completion in higher education in Europe demonstrates that national governments and higher education institutions use three different study success objectives: completion, time-to-degree and retention. To address these objectives policy makers at national and institutional level apply various policy instruments. These can be categorized under three main policy headings: financial incentives; information and support for students; and organizational issues. The evidence indicates that countries that have more explicit study success objectives, targets and policies are likely to be more successful. Particularly if the policy approach is comprehensive and consistent. As such, it is important that study success is an issue in the information provision to (prospective) students, in financial incentives for students and institutions, in quality assurance, and in the education pathways offered to students. Furthermore, increasing the responsibility of higher education institutions for study success, for example in the area of selecting, matching, tracking, counselling, mentoring and integrating students in academic life is clearly effective. Finally, to support the policy debate and monitoring of study success evidence, there is a need for more systematic international comparative data and thorough analysis of the effectiveness of study success policies

Alter als Kategorie sozialer Ungleichheit

Das Alter, so formulierte Kohli bereits 1990, stellt die Theorie sozialer Ungleichheiten vor neue Herausforderungen. Die zumeist an das Erwerbssystem gekoppelten traditionellen Begrifflichkeiten der Sozialstrukturanalyse wurden es schwierig bis unmoglich machen, die Lebenssituation der Alten adaquat erfassen zu konnen. Diese, im Zusammenhang mit dem demographischen Wandel groser werdende und auch an gesellschaftlicher Bedeutung gewinnende Gruppe Alterer verlange nach einer Neubestimmung des Begriffsapparates und der starkeren Integration einer biographischen Perspektive in die Betrachtung der sozialen Ungleichheit. Die Situation der Alten soll damit erfassbar und zu jener von Personen, die sich noch in der Lebensphase der Erwerbsarbeit befinden, vergleichbar werden.

Unravelling Tacit Knowledge

In the recent years at higher education institutions in Europe the establishment of Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) has become widespread. Mostly institutions use these centres to implement and coordinate activities improving the quality of teaching and learning, new teaching technologies or to train their teachers.

Unravelling tacit knowledge: Engagement Strategies of Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning or Centres for Teaching and Learning have become widespread across higher education institutions in Europe. These centres can be defined as nodes of “nodes of teaching and learning-focused activities” (Saunders et al. 2008, p. 28). Recent research has shown that centres frequently face difficulties promoting their enhancement activities (Gosling & Turner, 2014). This is due to a number of reasons, in particular to the low acceptance of the pedagogical knowledge used by the centres among academic staff. It appears that centres often have not developed a strategy to engage academic staff in their enhancement activities. This working paper however investigates the engagement strategies of two Centres for Teaching and Learning, one located at a mono-disciplinary institution in Norway, the other at a research university in Germany. As these centres have been implemented differently, the working paper also discusses how implementation affects the centre’s success. As the cases under review are highly contrasting the comparison singles out facilitators and hindrances to effective engagement strategies.

Bringing Efficiency In

The implementation of Research Training Groups (RTG) by the German Research Foundation at the beginning of the 1990 was one of the major steps towards a reform of doctoral education in Germany. A main intention of the RTG was to increase the efficiency of doctoral training. RTG aimed at a lowering of time-to-degree and age-at-graduation, also at achieving a higher degree of transparency as regards the supervision and training of doctoral students. To achieve these goals RTGs were implemented as temporary research units with a focused (interdisciplinary) research and study program at universities. Given this background the paper will compare processes, training conditions of the RTG along the following lines: • As regards efficiency we will have a closer look at the time to the doctorate. • Regards the conditions of doctoral training the RTG will be compared to other forms of doctoral training for those aspects that the RTG tried to change. • Finally, the paper will investigate in the question to what extent different conditions of training and other determinants have contributed to achieve more efficiency in terms of shortening the time to the doctorate. To answer these questions a comparative analysis will be done. The paper will be based on a survey among former doctoral students who pursued their doctorate in Germany during the 1990s. In this survey former members of RTG as well as former doctoral students who were graduating in a different, traditional setting had been integrated. These two groups will be compared. In total individual data from 1,424 doctorates from a wide range of different academic disciplines graduating from their doctoral studies between 1995 and 2000 will be analyzed

Social inclusion in international higher education: approach and achievements of IFP

There is no question that international student mobility has transformed the international higher education landscape in recent decades. It has brought diverse benefits to students, institutions, communities, and countries. At the student level, these include enhanced future employability, personal development, language acquisition, and greater intercultural sensitivity—all seen as advantages in today’s globalized world. For the sending countries, the opportunity for the best and the brightest to study at the world’s great universities holds the promise that they will return with greater expertise and knowledge of diverse languages, cultures, and business methods, thus increasing their countries’ competitive edge in the interconnected world economy. For the host countries and universities, international students have become a fiercely contested source of brain gain as well as income. Such expectations have also been fueled by the explosive growth of foreign students at the tertiary level. According to OECD and UNESCO data, the number of foreign tertiary students enrolled outside their country of citizenship more than quadrupled over the past three decades, increasing from 0.8 million in 1975 to 4.1 million in 2010 (OECD 2012, 362).