A significant feature of contemporary doctoral education is the continuing trend for research and research education to migrate beyond discipline-based institutional teaching and research structures. The result is a more diverse array of settings and arrangements for doctoral education linked to an increasingly global research enterprise.…

Use of the Australian research assessment exercise, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) to influence the policy and practice of research education in Australia will undoubtedly have many consequences, some of them unintended and potentially deleterious. ERA is a retrospective measure of research quality; research education is prospective.…

This article draws on the findings from, and the methods and approach used in the provision of a database of Australian PhD thesis records for the period 1987 to 2006, coded by Research Fields, Courses and Disciplines (RFCD) fields of study. Importantly, the project was not merely the creation of yet another database but something that constitutes…

Exploring the nexus between doctoral education and research, and developments in how research is organised and funded is of significance as doctoral education is both part of the higher education system for teaching and learning, and part of the research enterprise. Doctoral candidates are both students and effectively early career researchers.…

Although there is general agreement that doctoral students and their experiences are diverse, in what respect this is true is in question. Most institutional practices in the collection of data in this regard have been established to satisfy government reporting requirements and concerns, such as funding, participation and equity, and efficiency.…

Spatial, social and academic journeys undertaken between Taiwan and Australia for doctoral education are the focus of reflection here. The discussion centres on the authors' experiences of, on the one hand, the development of a Faculty of Education's doctoral pedagogies in the early 2000s to reflect its international PhD candidature…

The major growth of doctoral education in recent decades has attracted attention from policy makers and researchers. In this article we explore the growth of doctoral education in Australia, its impact on diversity in respect of the doctoral population, shifts in disciplinary strengths, institutional concentration and award programs. We conclude…

Professional doctorates enable the practice of research in ways that have wider benefits. Universities are becoming more flexible about what constitutes doctoral programs and how they are conducted. The role of research supervisors is thus being changed, and greater demands are being placed on them. (SK)

This article investigates how certain doctoral practices come to count as scandalous and with what effects on universities. To do so, it engages with a number of recent media allegations that relate to doctoral practice in Australia and elsewhere. The analysis of these allegations is developed in terms of three broad categories, namely allegations…

Universities are under no less pressure to adopt risk management strategies than other public and private organisations. The risk management of doctoral education is a particularly important issue given that a doctorate is the highest academic qualification a university offers and stakes are high in terms of assuring its quality. However, intense…

This paper discusses the higher education sector's role in a knowledge-based economy though research training, that is, doctoral education. It also examines how a Faculty of Education supports its doctoral candidates in their endeavours to become "knowledge producers". Two themes are explored: one is Australia's limited investment in…