The purposeful doctorate? Rethinking doctoral education for a changing world of work

How can doctoral education prepare researchers for purposeful work, within and beyond the academy? Are social justice, equality and creativity sufficiently valued in current doctoral programmes? Do practice-based doctorates offer models for rethinking doctoral education? What skills, purposes and values should doctoral education cultivate, and how are these best put to use in a range of future careers?

This joint Goldsmiths-Oxford seminar is hosted by SKOPE Oxford in conjunction with CGHE Oxford & the Graduate School @ Goldsmiths. It will bring together doctoral students, employers and supervisors from Goldsmiths and Oxford to explore the changing nature of doctoral education and the role of the PhD in cultivating social justice and transformative leadership.

Programme:

10.30 – 11 Registration and coffee
11 – 11.15 Welcome and Introduction – Frances Corner, Warden of Goldsmiths

11.15 – 12.30 Presentations on doctoral education :
Project Delta / Close the Gap / The Venture Science Doctorate

12.30 -1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 3.30 Student interventions

Short (5-10 minute) interventions are invited from Goldsmiths and Oxford doctoral students on:

• Linking social justice to doctoral education
• Student voices on rethinking research training
• Student activism and institutional reforms
• Valuing different ways of knowing, doing and making within, as well as, across disciplines
• Fostering creativity, criticality and collaboration in research training
• Doctoral research skills, ways of knowing and modes of enquiry across a range of sectors and situations.
• Practice-based doctoral training in arts, humanities and social sciences
• Collaborative doctorates and their challenges
• Doctoral research in/and/as part of professional practice

3.30 – 4 Reflections on the Purposeful Doctorate – Prof Christopher Smith , Executive Director AHRC