Title: The PhD challenge: a critical view and a comparative study

Authors: Ilie Mihai Taucean

Addresses: Politehnica University Timisoara, Str. Remus, nr. 14, Timisoara 300191, jud. Timis, Romania

Abstract: This paper offers a critical analysis of PhD activity, looking at two different systems from two countries, with different backgrounds, culture, history. The paper looks into the needs of a PhD and for a PhD, the needs of/for researchers, including students at all levels of study (undergraduate, graduate/master and PhD), academic researchers and industrial/businesses base researchers (applied research R&D). It explores the question of how PhD study might help a society in competitiveness and progress through knowledge, research and innovation. The study is mainly qualitative, done through a series of interviews, using two combined tools for analysing data (STEP and SWOT analysis), and through the presentation of some related/illustrative case studies. The goal is to do a benchmarking exercise to see the similarities and differences and the problems faced by these two systems and how these problems can be solved looking from the external point of view.

Keywords: critical analysis; PhD activity; research needs; researchers; PhD students; careers; comparative study; SWOT analysis; STEP analysis; MCDS methods; benchmarking; UK; United Kingdom; Romania; common standards; European PhD programmes.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2014.059050

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2014 Vol.8 No.1, pp.50 - 67

Published online: 06 Jun 2014 *

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