Doctoral education is of prime importance worldwide. In many countries, there is severe shortage of doctoral degree holders, while in others there is an oversupply in many fields. There is a global debate on the best ways of providing doctoral training. To illustrate global trends, the book analyses the current realities of doctoral education with the help of case studies based on fourteen countries and one continent. It includes an overview of the state of the literature on doctoral education as well as an analysis of doctoral education from a historical perspective with a detailed comparative discussion. Trends and Issues in Doctoral Education: A Global Perspective also examines the challenges and ideas of current and proposed reforms in doctoral education.

This book, the second in the projected three-volume Forces and Forms in Doctoral Education Worldwide series sponsored by the Center for Innovation in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington, invites readers to listen in as nearly thirty distinguished scholars and thought leaders confront urgent questions about doctoral education in a globalizing world: • How are research doctoral education and the research PhD degree evolving in different national contexts? • How do researchers in the early stage of their careers assess the value of doctoral education? • What are the challenges of using international demographic data from existing PhD programs to analyze trends in doctoral education? • What can happen when regional issues intersect with the need to evaluate doctoral education and ensure its quality? • Which quality-assurance model has been gaining favor in PhD education, and what challenges does it pose? • What accounts for conflict between national interests and international collaboration in doctoral education? • Is there empirical evidence of globalization’s impact on doctoral education and the labor market for PhD graduates? This follow-up to Toward a Global PhD? (University of Washington Press, 2008), the first volume in the series, includes case studies illustrating global trends in the structure, function, and quality frameworks of doctoral education, and it develops a conceptual framework linking globalization to trends in doctoral education while showing the particular history that has led to the convergence of a number of practices in one or more countries.

Postgraduate research has undergone unprecedented change in the past ten years, in response to major shifts in the role of the university and the disciplines in knowledge production and the management of intellectual work. New kinds of doctorates have been established that have expanded the scope and direction of doctoral education. A new audience of supervisors, academic managers and graduate school personnel is engaging in debates about the nature, purpose and future of doctoral education and how institutions and departments can best respond to the increasing demands that are being made. Discussion of the emerging issues and agendas is set within the context of the international policy shifts that are occurring and considers the implications of these shifts on the changing external environment. This engaging book acquaints the readers with new international trends in doctoral education identifies new practices in supervision, research, teaching and learning enables practitioners of doctoral education to contribute to the debates and help shape new understandings questions the purposes of doctoral study and how they are changing considers the balance between equipping students as researchers and the conduct of original research Including contributions from both those who have conducted formal research on research education and those whose own practice is breaking new ground within their universities, this thought-provoking book draws on the expertise of those currently making a stimulating contribution to the literature on doctoral education.

Universities and nations have long recognized the direct contribution of graduate education to the welfare of the economy by meeting a range of research and employment needs. With the burgeoning of a global economy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the economic outcome of doctoral education reaches far beyond national borders. Many doctoral programs in the United States and throughout the world are looking for opportunities to equip students to work in transnational settings, with scientists and researchers located across the globe. Nations competing within this global economy often have different and not always compatible motives for supporting graduate training. In this volume, graduate education experts explore some of the tensions and potential for cooperation between nations in the realm of doctoral education. The contributors assess graduate education in different systems around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the Nordic countries, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Many factors motivate the need for a global understanding of doctoral education, including the internationalization of the labor market and global competition, the expansion of opportunities for doctoral education in smaller and developing nations, and a declining interest among international students in pursuing their graduate education in the United States.

The U.S. system of graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has served the nation and its science and engineering enterprise extremely well. Over the course of their education, graduate students become involved in advancing the frontiers of discovery, as well as in making significant contributions to the growth of the U.S. economy, its national security, and the health and well-being of its people. However, continuous, dramatic innovations in research methods and technologies, changes in the nature and availability of work, shifts in demographics, and expansions in the scope of occupations needing STEM expertise raise questions about how well the current STEM graduate education system is meeting the full array of 21st century needs. Indeed, recent surveys of employers and graduates and studies of graduate education suggest that many graduate programs do not adequately prepare students to translate their knowledge into impact in multiple careers. Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century examines the current state of U.S. graduate STEM education. This report explores how the system might best respond to ongoing developments in the conduct of research on evidence-based teaching practices and in the needs and interests of its students and the broader society it seeks to serve. This will be an essential resource for the primary stakeholders in the U.S. STEM enterprise, including federal and state policymakers, public and private funders, institutions of higher education, their administrators and faculty, leaders in business and industry, and the students the system is intended to educate.

How can the full range of doctoral study in the UK be best described? What are the key features that are driving change to the system? What are the implications of current initiatives and the increasingly international context of research degree study? This book covers the differing kinds of doctorate award that exist currently and discusses critically issues that arise from the ways in which related forms of doctoral study are organized and assessed. It focuses on doctoral study, in all its forms, in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom, while being contextualised within an international dimension. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, the book focuses on the diversity in doctoral study. It examines the current state of the full range of doctoral awards, describes them, and then critically analyses tensions that exist. For example, it assesses the definitions and relations between different kinds of doctoral award, the pedagogy that surrounds them and the examination phases of each. The book also offers suggestions of ways to resolve the tensions associated with different forms of study and indicates possible future directions. Doctoral Study in Contemporary Higher Educationis an essential text for those who manage, fund and deliver education at doctoral level.