Presentation in English

Science and society in transition: what place for the doctorate?

Collection of proposals from the Workshop on Doctoral Supervision 2023

The Workshop on Doctoral Supervision

The Workshop on Doctoral Supervision (Workshop sur l’Encadrement Doctoral, WED) aims to help those involved in doctoral structures and policies to meet the current challenges of the doctorate, especially in France. It consists of a series of thematic workshops during which participants reflect together to co-construct concrete and realistic solutions to current issues that doctoral researchers, supervisors and doctoral structures are facing.

Participants represent the full spectrum of actors involved in the doctorate: doctoral researchers, supervisors, managers and staff from public research organizations, employers and funding bodies.

This diversity makes it possible to bring together both the individual and collective levels of doctoral supervision, and to think of supervision collectively, as a system that needs to work in synergy. 

The 2023 edition

The third edition of the WED took place on November 16 and 17, 2023 at the University of Strasbourg. It was co-organized by Adoc Mètis1, ANDès2, CJC3 and RNCD4. It was attended by 63 participants representing a wide range of doctoral stakeholders.

Fifteen workshops were organized in three working sessions. The main topics addressed by these workshops were: research integrity, the environmental dimension of research ethics, doctoral researchers’ mental health, and doctoral researchers’ expectations regarding their training, supervision and working conditions. The list of workshops is provided in the full report in French here.

Three conferences were organized to enrich the WED debates: 

  • a lecture by Dr Eric Guilyardi on the environmental dimension of research ethics;
  • a lecture by Dr Stéphanie Gauttier on the mental health of doctoral researchers; and
  • a conference-debate with Dr Helke Hillebrand, Dr Claudine Leysinger and Dr Stefanie Hof on the future of doctoral supervision in Europe.

Main proposals from the workshops

Below follows a synthetic overview of the 15 workshops’ recommendations. The proposals are presented according to whom they address : supervisors, doctoral schools, institutions for higher education, the French ministry for higher education etc.

A full presentation of what was discussed in each workshop is available in French here.

Doctoral researchers’ expectations

Supervisors

  • Be trained for welcoming doctoral researchers in specific situations (disabilities, non-French speakers, foreign nationals).
  • Participate in training and practice-sharing workshops for supervisors.

Doctoral schools or colleges

  • Involve doctoral researchers (via their associations and/or elected representatives) in the engineering and management of reception arrangements, and in the construction of training catalogs.
  • Consider the variety of doctoral researchers’ situations (particularly non-French-speaking, disabled, part-time or foreign doctoral researchers) when designing welcome information and cohesion programs.
  • Train doctoral schools’ administrative staff to deal with the variety of doctoral researchers’ situations.
  • Provide supervisors with information about doctoral researchers (compulsory programs, training courses).

Institutions

  • Include supervisor training in evaluations and career development.
  • Train administrative staff to deal with the variety of situations faced by doctoral researchers.

Environmental impact of research

Supervisors

  • Encourage researchers who submit projects (both permanent and non-permanent staff) to consider the environmental and societal impacts of their research: ask doctoral researchers to reflect on the subject, e.g. during the individual follow-up committee (CSI, comité de suivi individuel or CST, comité de suivi de thèse in France):initial reflection on predicted impacts, then follow-up.

Doctoral schools or colleges

  • Pool efforts and funding where possible: doctoral colleges can offer basic training, while doctoral schools can offer more specialized training.
  • Ensure that existing training and awareness-raising programs for doctoral researchers (and staff in general) include time for collective reflection among peers on the environmental dimension of research, ethics and research integrity.
  • Encourage researchers submitting projects (both permanent and non-permanent staff) to consider the environmental and societal impacts of their research:
    • include these requests explicitly in project submission forms – while paying attention that the categories of evaluation grids or indicators are not too directive and that they give room for reflection on the subject on the part of researchers; and
    • ask doctoral researchers to reflect on the subject, e.g. during the CSI/CST (initial reflection on forecast impacts, then follow-up).

Institutions and ministry

  • Draw up an inventory of existing training courses:
    • mapping existing training courses on the environmental impact of research available to doctoral researchers, distribution of a catalog; and
    • an inventory of research project impact analysis resources and practices (Labo1point5, EU and ANR, Agence nationale de la recherche).
  • Pool efforts and financial support where possible: initiate an inter-institutional and inter-ministerial working group (Ministry for higher education and research and the Ministry of the Environment) that can call on resource persons to build a shared training system at national level.
  • Provide the necessary resources for working groups, referents and resource persons at inter-institutional level and inside institutions.
  • Encourage researchers who submit projects (both permanent and non-permanent staff) to consider the environmental and societal impacts of their research: integrate this approach into laboratory assessments.

Problematic situations in the supervision and working environment of doctoral researchers

Supervisors

  • De-dramatize changes in supervision.
  • Reinforce collective control, by reminding staff that the position of teacher-researcher is highly protected, and encouraging them to lift the code of silence that may persist in certain problematic situations.

Unit management

  • Remind staff of limits as soon as a breach of minimum respect is observed.
  • Communicate about sanctions when they occur.
  • Ensure that new arrivals are made aware of what a caring environment is.

Doctoral schools or colleges

  • Clarify the precise rules for the composition and conduct of the CSIs/CSTs in each doctoral school or college, and communicate them in French and English:
    • provide an interview guide for supervisors and committee members;
    • request a written commitment from committee members concerning confidentiality and the absence of conflicts of interest;
    • provide training or information for doctoral researchers so that they are aware of their rights in relation to the CSI/CST; and
    • suggest that doctoral researchers add a member to the CSI/CST a few months after starting their doctorate.
  • Make the change of supervision less dramatic and provide support, in particular by informing doctoral researchers of the conditions and framework that allow these changes.

Institutions

  • Provide a list of internal contacts (and a directory with their numbers) to doctoral school or college directors, supervisors and doctoral researchers: student and occupational medicine, referrers, etc.
  • Provide training by the institution or HR on the resources made available by the institution on the steps to follow in the event of a problematic situation being reported, remediation and sanction procedures – in particular for any new research unit director, any doctoral school or college director, but also for doctoral researchers delegates.
  • Set up awareness-raising campaigns on gender-based and sexual violence and surveys on psycho-social risks.
  • Provide training for staff involved in the various listening and reporting units.
  • Develop a reflection on the notion of doctoral supervision at institutional level, which could be based on training courses on doctoral supervision.

Ministry

  • Provide institutions and doctoral schools and colleges with legal frameworks to take action against “absent” supervisors (decisions of a pedagogical rather than disciplinary nature), as well as against harassing supervisors (impose change of supervision, ban on supervision).
  • Reinforce the autonomy and responsibility of doctoral school directors, enabling them to limit doctoral enrollments and re-registrations with supervisors whose supervision has been reported as problematic.

Research integrity

Supervisors

  • Clarify and discuss the principles of research integrity with doctoral researchers.

Doctoral schools or colleges

  • Clarify defense criteria.
  • Do not set bibliometrical thresholds for authorizing defenses.
  • Focus research integrity trainings on reflection rather than content.

Institutions

  • Refuse bibliometrical indicators when recruiting.
  • Train doctoral school directors about the dangers of bibliometrical indicators.
  • Get research integrity officers, gender-based and sexual violence officers, ethics officers and HR departments to work together.

MESR

  • Make a nationwide inventory of doctoral schools’ defense criteria.

Relations with the socio-economic world

Supervisors

  • For research partnerships, draw up partnership agreements that are as explicit and far-sighted as possible.
  • To establish contacts, use existing networks in institutions, departments, doctoral schools and laboratories.
  • Promote and give meaning to the tools available to doctoral researchers, e.g. the portfolio and the training agreement.

Doctoral schools or colleges

  • Promote and give meaning to the tools available to doctoral researchers, e.g. the portfolio and the training agreement.
  • Provide a variety of awareness tools on careers for doctoral researchers, supervisors and the socio-economic world.
  • Organize support for doctoral researchers and supervisors to reflect within an interdisciplinary framework on their partnership research situations.

Institutions

  • Provide models or guides for partnership agreements, and support researchers in preparing these agreements.
  • Develop alumni networks and associations.
  • Organize support for doctoral researchers and supervisors to reflect on their research partnerships in an interdisciplinary context.

MESR

  • Offer a platform/application to put companies, associations and development structures in touch with doctoral researchers.

1Adoc Mètis is a training organization and consultancy firm working for and with French Higher Education.

2ANDès is the National association of French PhDs.

3CJC is the French confederation of early career researchers, i.e. of doctoral researchers.

4RNCD is the National network of French Doctoral Colleges (doctoral colleges being the structures inside universities grouping the doctoral schools, in charge of managing the doctorate in each of the universities’ discipline)