Higher Education Research Coventry University

Overview

The successful candidates will enrol at Coventry University as their home institution and will have the opportunity to undertake a collaborative doctoral research programme under the supervision of academic experts from both universities and spend a year at Aarhus University.

Key Facts

• The Higher Education Research programme from Coventry University offers researchers the opportunity to advance their skills and expertise in the higher education field, whilst developing their intercultural and international skills through engaging in research in both the United Kingdom and Denmark. It will also provide the opportunity to develop international networks and collaborations.

• Both students recruited to the programme will be expected to undertake comparative studies addressing one of the following areas:  Identification and critical analysis of different supervisor pedagogies inherent in doctoral supervision provided in the Danish/Scandinavian and British doctoral education contexts.

• How doctoral supervisors, and doctoral supervision, have become inextricably entangled in the wider institutional context of Graduate Schools and quality assurance agendas.

•  Analysis of the changing face(s) and purposes of the doctorate internationally – for academic careers, knowledge workers, professional development and other.

• Identifying how the changing landscape of the PhD becomes visible in dissertation formats, writing genres and processes of PhD students.

• Analysis of what ‘research’ and ‘researcher education’ mean in relation to the PhD today, and how the domains of research, education, and policy play up against each other in the discourse and practices around the PhD.  

• The challenges of designing a collaborative PhD programme and creating a mutually supportive cohort of PhD fellows and future knowledge workers in interdisciplinary projects spanning several European countries.

• The influence of national and institutional contexts on the learning journeys of doctoral students, supervisory approaches and the wider doctoral provision.

• Exploration of informal and extra-curricular support systems and networks that doctoral students draw from during their PhD, and investigation of the impact of how such institutionally unrecognised and unacknowledged supports contribution to the well-being of doctoral students and to completion rates.

• The development of mutually supportive communities of practice, using student experience as well as tailored reading to internationalise the doctoral process.

• Academic staff as doctoral candidates. How does studying in the same institution in which they work impact on the identity of academic staff in different international contexts?

• Intercultural awareness as a crucial doctoral outcome in an increasingly globalised world: to what extent is it evident internationally?

• Disability and doctoral candidature. Are our systems set up to cope with inclusivity at doctoral level?

• What impact does international mobility have on the cultural, intellectual and social capital of doctoral candidates?

• How does the co-location of doctoral candidates in research centres contribute to their satisfaction, progression and completion?