INVITATION TO RESPOND TO SHORT SURVEY ON DOCTORAL EDUCATION

The International Association of Universities (IAU) and partners (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; University of Bergen; NORDUnet and Nordic Insight), invite you to contribute to a short survey on international collaboration in doctoral education: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/IDOCOS1

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed significant deficiencies in virtually all countries when it comes to remote learning. When universities overnight pivoted from campus-based education to digital and remote solutions, this very often meant emulating what used to happen on campus and not necessarily quality online learning and teaching. Despite the challenges that the pandemic has caused, it also represents an opportunity to reconsider practices and processes and to reform the university education. The partners behind this survey seek to leverage this opportunity by proposing an innovative approach to co-creation and sharing of doctoral courses among universities in different countries. It proposes a structured process and comprehensive guidance supporting the move towards more internationally co-created and shared resources for doctoral education to enhance reciprocal exchange of research capacity, resources, to increase competencies and ultimately strengthening high-quality research education through international collaboration.

In order to build the methodology, it is essential to take stock of the current situation and address the needs and expectations of the higher education institutions. We have already received numerous replies from higher education institutions in Europe for a first part of the project; but the group is building a second part with partner universities in Africa with a view to enhance research capacity and international collaboration in doctoral education. For this second part of the project, we need more information about the current situation in Africa.

We therefore invite you to send this invitation to colleagues in charge of doctoral education within your institution. It will take between 10-15 minutes to respond to this quick survey which will be of tremendous support in order to further respond to the specific needs in Africa.

It is not important whether you institution is already participating in co-sharing and co-creation of doctoral courses; the most important for us is to get a clear picture of the current situation in order to address it through collaboration.

For any questions regarding the survey; please contact Trine Jensen at the International Association of Universities (IAU) t.jensen@iau-aiu.net

We thank the Association of African Universities (AAU) for their support in disseminating this survey and we thank you for contributing to the survey!

ACCESS the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/IDOCOS1