Handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates launched at Erasmus+ workshop

MSM and its partners recently concluded a three-year Erasmus+ research project funded by the European Union on the supervision of professional doctorates with a dissemination workshop in Maastricht. At this workshop, held on 29 August, a report was launched entitled ‘A handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates’.

(Photo: MSM’s Dean with participants at the workshop)

MSM Dean Professor Wim Naudé opened the workshop and welcomed participants from various higher education institutions in the Netherlands, France, Germany and even Peru. The workshop had the aim to present, contextualize and discuss the findings conveyed in the handbook. The workshop was led by Dr. Annette Fillery-Travis, SuperProfDoc’s project coordinator and head of the Wales Institute for Work-Based Learning, who implemented an interactive and engaging seminar that drew on participants’ rich experiences as supervisors of both ‘traditional’ and ‘professional’ doctoral candidates.

Emergent issues brought to the floor by participants included the optimal balance between on-line and on-campus supervision modalities; the utilization of cultural and disciplinary diversity; intellectual property rights in the context of work-based knowledge generation; the challenges of supervising outside one’s subject area; and best practices in terms of quality assessment, accreditation and external benchmarking.

MSM has been a leading partner in the Erasmus+ SuperProfDocproject on the supervision of such doctorates. Together with the Institute for Work Based Learning at Middlesex University London, ADAPT, the Wales Institute for Work Based Learning at Trinity Saint David (University of Wales), the College of Education and Human Performance at the University of Central Florida and Eurodoc (the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Young Researchers), MSM has helped to develop a framework to advise on the capabilities and practices that are required for effective supervision of the modern doctorate.

The report can be downloaded here.