This article focuses on key challenges for doctoral education in the context of changes in university systems across the world. These include the mismatch between PhD production and the needs of academia, demand for rethinking PhD training models across various disciplines, and barriers to academic mobility in faculty recruitment.

The diversity of models and formats of doctoral education reflects the diversity of national academic systems. Given that, one commonality has existed for a long time and remains to this day: postgraduate education has traditionally been seen as a key institution to train and recruit next generations of university faculty. PhD graduates are expected to dream about becoming professors. However, current trends show that fewer and fewer PhD graduates associate their future with academia. In 2019, about 41 percent of doctorate recipients with definite employment commitments (excluding postdoc positions) in the United States reported that their principal job would be in academia (with 12 percent among engineering graduates and 17 percent in physical sciences and earth sciences). The number of PhD graduates who go into the nonacademic labor market is on par with those who go on to work in universities. Several factors are contributing to this. First, there is increasing competition for research and analytical skills from a number of industries (such as IT or biotechnologies). Although there are countries and disciplines that exhibit exceptions, PhD holders’ salaries are usually significantly higher outside academia, and nonacademic jobs do not necessarily mean giving up research.

Another factor is related to changes in conditions within academia. These include cuts in financial support for research (among other things, reduced funding for postgraduate positions) and the expansion of postdoc positions. The latter lengthens the path to a tenured or long-term appointment, reducing the number and share of these positions, and augmenting recruitment and promotion requirements.

There are alarming voices saying that the flow of students into doctoral schools is declining. Given the overproduction of PhD students in many countries, this may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it may lead to adverse selection: the best graduates do not enter academia (voluntarily or involuntarily). Thus, a long-standing question becomes even more salient: are universities able to attract the best and brightest, or do they lose out in competition with the nonacademic sector? This question asks for critical reflection on the future of doctoral education.

Questions for Reflection

Overproduction of PhDs may persist in specific disciplines (e.g., humanities) where universities rely on doctoral students in teaching or research. However, imbalance emerges at the national level as well. While in some countries there is an overproduction of doctorates (China and Germany, for instance), in other national systems there is an underproduction of academic staff (e.g., Japan and South Africa). What could universities on both sides do to offset such imbalance? How should the programs that target highly qualified returnees be designed to achieve maximal impact? How effective are these programs?

It is also important to ask how doctoral students entering universities are affected by neoliberal trends in higher education, such as the risks and challenges posed by the decline in the number of tenure contracts, the increase in teaching contracts, and the decline in labor guarantees, as well as the lack of empirical quantitative estimation of corresponding losses.

Funding models are also an important consideration. Institutions must determine the best model of funding for doctoral education given the current conditions, i.e., with reduced state support for science in general, as well as for PhD programs specifically. Given that these programs now train more personnel for the nonacademic market than for academia, from the state’s point of view, there is an argument for them to attract more external resources.

Other questions arise around quality. It is important to ask what role industry could play in funding doctoral education and to question how industry funding would relate to the wider context of relationships between universities and industry in the context of the knowledge economy. Will all universities in the future be able to afford doctoral programs? Already today, the question of quality standards is a pressing issue for schools offering doctorates in many countries. How can institutions generate (or maintain) a high level of quality against the background of decreasing funding?

Finally, what skills should be the focus of doctoral education? Today, models of doctoral education that emerge in different disciplines (such as education, law, or business and administration) already take into account the fact that a substantial share of graduates are preparing for a career outside the academic sector. What consequences might this stratification lead to in the future? Shall we expect new models in traditional science disciplines as well? How can these models reflect the currently blurring boundaries between university and industry, as well as between traditional disciplines? Despite the development of interdisciplinary research, doctoral training today is embedded in traditional disciplinary discourse and discourages boundary crossings and high-risk projects in general. How does the choice of interdisciplinary topics as a dissertation research topic affect subsequent success on the labor market?

Answers to these questions can provide valuable insight, as governments and institutions around the world look forward to the future of doctoral education.

Maria Yudkevich is professor at the faculty of education, University of Haifa, Israel. E-mail: [email protected].