Doctoral Education: More a Tool than a Passport

Abstract

The main aim of this opinion article is to approach the issue of doctoral education from a specific angle - not as a single path to enter or maintain a career within academia, but mainly as a tool to develop a solid research training and, regardless of the sector in which PhD holders will be employed, to prepare skilled professionals, able to creatively respond to unknown complex work situations in an increasingly changing knowledge- based society. We will not refer any scientific domain
because, in this case, the same rational could be applied to different scientific and professional fields, from Law to Engineering
or Economy, from Medicine to Social Sciences.
Based on the claim that the main outcome of a PhD process is the PhD degree holder, not the thesis, we present the project of NOVA (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) Doctoral School as a complementary training project in a wide range of transversal professional and personal competences offered to the PhD students of NOVA’s nine Academic Units (Schools and Institutes).