Now is a moment of openness to innovation in STEM PhD education around the world which holds enormous potential for inventing a better, future-oriented PhD. To realize this potential, we need to understand the relationship of national and local policy actors to globalizing and internationalizing forces and the outcomes of current reforms in doctoral education. To help meet this need, the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington, Seattle, with support from NSF, created a unique international network of doctoral education researchers and policy makers, the Forces and Forms of Change in Doctoral Education Worldwide (F&F) network. Based on two previous NSF-supported research collaborations, F&F network members have identified three critical topics in the globalization of science doctoral education which they are committed to investigating: (1) internationalization and inequality in intellectual capital, (2) diversity in doctoral education, and (3) preserving the role in doctoral education of intellectual risk-taking (i.e., the capacity to conduct research outside the mainstream or with uncertain outcomes). This proposal requests support for a synthesis research project which will build on the expertise and prior research collaborations of the F&F network to generate policies for addressing these three critical issues. The goal is to move beyond the national context for understanding these issues and to generate policy tools for shaping science PhD programs to address these issues within the context of the emerging, global system of STEM doctoral education. Support is requested for research, centralization of information on PhD education internationally through a web-based information hub, planning and coordinating a meeting of participating researchers (including travel support for U.S. scholars), involvement of younger scholars (i.e., a small training component) and dissemination of research findings and research-based policy recommendations through print and online media, targeting doctoral education policy audiences, including researchers, graduate deans, funding agencies, and the general higher education public (e.g., insidehighered.com and Chronicle of Higher Education). The Intellectual Merits The F&F network's research agenda will advance knowledge in the area of globalization in doctoral education. This project focuses particularly on the international policy context for expansion and innovation in STEM PhD programs. Resulting research papers will contribute to understanding of individuals and organizations who influence, advocate, and implement policy reform in PhD programs around the world and the relationship of national and local actors to globalizing and internationalizing forces in doctoral education. Building on this knowledge, the project will generate policy recommendations addressing the role of doctoral education in the unequal distribution of intellectual capital, diversity in PhD education, and the role of intellectual risk-taking in doctoral education. The Broader Impacts of Proposed Activity This project is designed to promote broader impacts by creating vehicles for centralization and dissemination of research on doctoral education worldwide, fostering international connections among doctoral education researchers and policy makers, and stimulating further research on critical issues in PhD education. CIRGE will make the policy-relevant knowledge that exists in the F&F network available to U.S. audiences through publications, presentations and the CIRGE-managed web-based information hub. The project links diversity and excellence in STEM PhD education in a novel way by developing global (or at least international) perspectives on both issues as two sides of the same coin. The project includes graduate students and early-career scholars. It will generate policy tools for improving doctoral education.
Today national governments view doctorate holders as critical for innovation and discovery in all fields, but particularly in science and technology and for national capacity building and economic development. PhD production is expanding around the world and being reformed with the goal of producing graduates prepared for roles as innovators and leaders. Therefore, the Center for Innovation and Research at the University of Washington developed a research synthesis workshop that brought together 40 participants from 24 countries, including 12 early career researchers, in Kassel, Germany, March 23-27, 2009. The synthesis of research focused on: Distribution of creating equitable intellectual capital across the global north-south axis. Practices of fostering diversity in doctoral recruitment and retention. Investigations of hurdles to intellectual risk-taking in doctoral education such as conducting research outside the mainstream and practices to overcome limiting policies and structures that traditionally have been oriented to risk reduction in doctoral education. Participants worked in three task forces and developed actionable recommendations for the three topics. The process and structure to arrive at the recommendations included the ECRs who each morning of the workshop offered critical commentary on the previous day’s discussion. Other experts addressed translating research into policy frameworks and communicating results and recommendations effectively to news media and policymakers. The workshop was documented by a media team and is still available on the CIRGE website (www.cirge.washington.edu). The workshop recommendations were disseminated globally to policy-makers in academia, government, and the private sector. The subsequent book will be published by Sense Publications in spring 2015. Summary findings: Equity in the Distribution of Intellectual Capital In 2010 about three million students were enrolled in higher education institutions outside their home countries. Among these, doctoral students come mostly from poorer nations to study in richer nations with comprehensive research and university systems. Yet, the opportunities thereby created for sharing knowledge, enhancing the cross-cultural skills of both international and domestic students, and building scientific capacity in less developed countries are often not the center of international collaborations and exchanges. Host institutions do too little to bring international and domestic students together in ways that enhance students’ learning of cross-cultural skills. International policies through the lens of global inequality were examined, ways to mitigate the negative consequences developed, and training PhD advisors to effectively facilitate cross-cultural research groups recommended. Diversity in Doctoral Education in International Perspective Participation in PhD programs is marked by patterns of inclusion and exclusion related to gender, mode of study, age, disability, citizenship status, language background, socio-economic background, and religion. Data and trends in these broad characteristics of diversity were gathered as a basis for an international system of diversity indicators in PhD programs. The creation of a common approach and taxonomy across disciplines and educational systems has been addressed. In promoting a greater diversity among doctoral students, the recommendations discourage sole reliance on quantitative selection criteria of doctoral students. Intellectual Risk-taking in Doctoral Research The advancement of knowledge requires willingness to pursue risky but potentially transformative research projects. Cases of existing academic reward structures that discourage high-risk research projects were discussed. The context of doctoral education funding and expectations was analyzed and recommendations for advisors and graduate deans of ways in which doctoral education can help equip graduates to consider risky research projects, to work effectively in interdisciplinary and cross-institutional contexts were developed.
