The changing landscape of doctoral education in the UK

ABSTRACT

As elsewhere across the globe, for the past two decades doctoral education in the UK has been in the throes of change. This article seeks to describe and analyse developments in 1) the national framework for doctoral education, 2) institutional structures, 3) doctoral programmes, 4) doctoral candidacy, 5) doctoral supervision and 6) doctoral examination. Multiple sources of evidence, including official documentation and the results of investigations of the public-facing websites of the 150 institutions providing doctoral programmes, are used. The conclusion shows that these changes have been far-reaching, particularly for supervisors, and a call is made for greater recognition of their contributions to doctoral education.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral education
• national framework
• institutions
• programmes
• supervisors
• candidates
• examination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stan Taylor

Stan Taylor is an Honorary Professor in the School of Education at Durham University. His research and writing interests are in the professionalisation of doctoral supervision and he has published widely in this field. He has been active in establishing institutional and national schemes to recognise and reward good research supervision.

Gina Wisker

Gina Wisker is Associate Prof/Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Management at the University of Bath, Professor 11 in ‘RESULT’ at UiT, the University of Tromso, Norway, visiting researcher at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Gina’s research and writing interests are in doctoral super-vision and doctoral student learning and writing.