131/03/2006 Centrale doctoraatsbegeleiding

Developing awareness of skills

Mark Runacres & Gunter LauwersVrije Universiteit BrusselEUPIDE - 12 June 2008

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Why skills?

  In general– rapidly changing world– increasing mobility (international and

intersectorial)– the knowledge economy (Lisbon

agenda)– continuing education

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Why skills?

  For PhDs– particular situation...

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PhDs in Belgium(Verlinden, 2006, KULeuven)

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Academic positions(Verlinden, 2006, KULeuven)

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Production of researchers

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After the PhD

• Belgium: ~ 10% of PhDs finds permanent position inside academia

• The others don’t necessarily end up in research

• Need to convince industry that PhDs are employable, that research degree is an asset

• Need for skills that can be transferred to other sectors➔ Generic skills

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What skills?

  Vocational skills– technical– sector-specific– also transferable

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What skills?

  Generic skills– communication, management,

teamworking, interpersonal, career management, ...

– also useful for research

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Developing skills

  Acquiring skills– may be present at entry – may be explicitly taught– may be acquired during (research)

activities– may be acquired outside degree

programme or research

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Awareness of skills

  Who needs to be aware?– early-stage researchers– advisers and academic staff– the university leaders– industry

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Skills needed by PhD students

SUBJECT important

[English for Academic and Research Purposes: WRITING ] 75%

[English for Academic and Research Purposes: PRESENTATION SKILLS]

70%

[Statistics for research purposes] 62%

[Software for statistical analysis] 51%

[Software for the management of bibliographic references] 44%

[Research management] 43%

[Qualitative research techniques and methodology] 41%

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Skills rated by (ex-)researchers in industry

  (schaal van 1 tot 7, S’Jegers & Braeckman, 2002)

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Vaardigheden

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Electronic tools

  Portfolio– structured record– personal development planner

(reflection) – training needs analysis– linked to annual reports– some kind of certified output– empowers early-stage researcher

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Portfolio at Vrije Universiteit Brussel

– convincing and implementing has proved to be much, much more difficult than we had anticipated...

– skills-based education is gradually being adopted at the Ba-Ma level

– most advisers and academic staff still tend to think of skills as “extra”

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Explicit training VUB

• vocational (sector) skills and generic (transferable) skills

• not compulsory• mostly free for registered PhD students• professional record

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Explicit training VUBscientific training in research skills

• research methodology and techniques; awareness of scientific ethics

• scientific writing and publishing; academic writing in English; presentation skills

• intellectual property rights (patents, copyright, …)

• research management• how to get funded• scientific typesetting

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Explicit training VUBtraining in transferable (generic) skills

• writing and communication skills;

• networking and team-working;

• material/human resources and financial management;

• leadership skills;

• time management; project management

• career management including job-seeking techniques;

• ethics and philosophy

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Remarks/Questions

• We are training people for managerial tasks in industry by putting them in a lab and making them write lots of papers, preferably in Nature

• How many PhDs does industry really need?

• How to convince advisers that completing the dissertation on time is not all that counts?

• The role of central agencies such as QAA, research councils, etc