Euroscience Open Forum 2012

The number of science PhDs produced globally each year is growing fast. Yet the PhD’s oft-intended aim – to prepare students for a life in academia – is an outdated one. In some countries, people who have trained at great effort, length and expense to be researchers confront a dwindling number of academic jobs. Is the PhD in dire need of reform?
This session will discuss current challenges to the PhD system and explore how it is changing at some institutions, and should be changed more broadly in the European Union and beyond. Panellists in doctoral education will present their visions for the science PhD of the future – and offer advice to research leaders, policy makers and students on how to best equip students for the 21st-century science workplace, based on their views, research and specific programmes that might serve as models.