Dear Colleagues,
INVITATION - UCL DEBATES IN HIGHER EDUCATION SEMINAR SERIES
Title: PhD: original contribution to knowledge?
Abstract:
After the publication of the Roberts' Report 'Set for Success' and that
of the Joint Skills Statement by the Research Councils, main funders of
doctoral studies in the UK, there has been a shift in the aims, focus
and structure of doctoral programmes in the UK.
Data for this paper was collected from in-depth interviews with PhD
supervisors in the Social Sciences.
The new 'research training' paradigm changes, according to some, the
nature of the PhD. The new PhDs are seen by some as a less significant
piece of work than the PhDs produced by the current supervisors. The
main stated reasons for the perceived difference in quality between old
and new theses are the research councils' imposed deadline and the need
to spend time on various, compulsory or otherwise, training courses
which are often seen as distracting students from what should be their
main (for some, unique) focus: the thesis.
These challenge previously accepted individual conceptions of what the
PhD should be and should attain. Expectations on doctoral outcomes are
said to have changed. The current paper argues that this will in turn
have an impact on the type of researchers and academics Universities are
producing. Producing simplified and efficient researchers appears to be
the objective of doctoral programmes presently. Plus, universities are
privileging forms of knowledge with a operational and strategic
character (Barnett 1993). More risky, even speculative, topics are being
censored. This paper will consider what the long term impacts of these
changes in the creation of knowledge and disciplinary practices may be.
This would be done within a frame of long-term trends in sociological
thought and some contributions from epistemology.
Speaker: Frederico Braga de Matos, CALT, UCL
Date: Wednesday 24th March 2010
Time: 3.30-5.00pm
Venue: SB5 188 Tottenham Court Road (188 Tottenham Court Road can be
found on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Tollington Place)
Map: <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/maps/ucl-maps/map2_hi_res>
We are pleased to invite you to our next "Debates in Higher Education"
and hope that you will be able to join us for this event.
To book a place, please contact Peter Phillips by e-mail:
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] or if you have
any queries telephone 020 7679 1792.
Thanks
Peter
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Peter Phillips
UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching
University College London
1-19 Torrington Place
London WC1E 6BT
020 7679 (4) 1792
Email: [log in to unmask]
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