Design Options For The Future Doctorate

This report delivers both research-driven education options for building the quality of the doctorate in Australia, and resources to inform institutions and candidates. Th e report stems from a commissioned project shaped by a growing perception that the Australian doctorate, while effective, is not optimised to best serve future interests of students, academia or industry. This project was advanced as an education - focused re - thinking of the doctorate. Work ing from current policy and practice, the project was delivered to help Australian universities fashion targeted and effective futures for research and professional doctorates. The project engaged leaders in the field, and it extended prior institutional, national, scholarly, and international investigations into the doctorate as well as academic and professional work. It involved research and environmental reviews, proposals for policy and strategy, surveys and interviews, and consultation with Australian and institutional stakeholders. This project was designed in 2014 and commissioned in late 2015 with work taking place across 2016 and 2017. Of course, Australian universities are engaged in ongoing renovation of their doctoral programs. This project was designed and delivered using a project logic focused on doctoral outcomes and capabilities which are developed through student experiences and program designs. This logic framed four guiding research questions: What are the desirable and actual learning and professional outcomes of doctoral education? W hat generic and specific capabilities equip doctoral graduates for professional success? What essential and optimal training experiences are required to develop capabilities? What suite of design options best equips the sector for steering the future of doctoral education in Australia? The main outcome of this project was to produce a doctoral design architecture . This doctoral design architecture took shape over two years. It took account of the contextual and conceptual reviews, stakeholder consultations, graduate and expert interviews and surveys, and further regional discussions. The goal was to produce a simple yet powerful architecture to help ensure the future doctorate is internally coherent, externally transparent, and nuanced to individual and institutional contexts. [Executive summary, ed]