Abstract
In the last decade with the Bologna implementation, doctoral supervision gained a new emphasis and emerged as crucial for developing the European research area. Research, on doctoral supervision practices, and the supervisor ideal profile was carried out in a TOP 10 young European university, at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The results show that meetings (individual or in groups) are the most implemented practice. Usually, students present orally, to a supervisor, the research that they already made regarding the initial work plane. Two supervisors' profiles emerge from the students' voices, the real and the ideal. The ideal supervisor profile that emerges from the questionnaires features supervisors who take students care, give feedback on work on time, and are honest and critical.
Highlights
The changing in the profile of the doctorate in the last decade and the expectation of employability outside the academy brought new aims for doctoral education and new challenges to the supervision process (Halse & Malfroy, 2010; Lee, 2018; Fillery-Travis, Maguire, Pizzolatti, Robinson, Lowley, Stel & Mans, 2017; Denis, Colet & Lison, 2019)
The surveys were delivered, via institutional e-mail, to all nine schools that belong to Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT); Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (FCSH); A NOVA School of Business and Economics (NSBE); NOVA Medical School / Faculdade de Ciências Médicas (NMS/FCM); Faculdade de Direito (FD); Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT); NOVA Information Management School (NIMS); Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier (ITQB); Escola Nacional de Saúde Publica (ENSP)), and they were sent to the PhD supervisors and students
Twenty-five supervisors (18.7%) partially disagreed, 28 supervisors (25%) partially agreed, and eleven supervisors (9.8%) agreed. These results show that student prior knowledge is not a criterion used by most supervisors to select and accept doctoral students
Summary
The changing in the profile of the doctorate in the last decade and the expectation of employability outside the academy brought new aims for doctoral education and new challenges to the supervision process (Halse & Malfroy, 2010; Lee, 2018; Fillery-Travis, Maguire, Pizzolatti, Robinson, Lowley, Stel & Mans, 2017; Denis, Colet & Lison, 2019). This alteration started in the Lisbon strategy in 2000, with the definition of EHEA (European Higher education Area) and ERA (European research area) and in Europe it has been imposing since (Repečkaitė, 2016). It is based on a relationship between the supervisor and the doctoral student and implies flexibility, negation, power issues, subjectivity, being a fluid task (Connell, 1985; Love & Street, 1998; Grant 1999)
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