Tag "doctoral education"

Doctoral programs across the globe face a myriad of challenges, and one particularly intricate puzzle involves the diverse landscape of their student body. This diversity spans across dimensions like age, socioeconomic background, motivation, and career aspirations, injecting a rich tapestry of perspectives into the academic realm. Despite these shifts, doctoral programs often find themselves grappling with the task of adapting swiftly to this evolving environment. In their study, Natalia Maloshonok and Saule Bekova delve into the fascinating concept of 'departmental climate' to unravel how Russian university doctoral students perceive their academic surroundings.

While the global tide swayed toward an expansion in doctoral education, Russia found itself swimming against the current, experiencing a dip in enrollments from 2010 to 2019. However, the year 2020 witnessed an unexpected change of fortunes, with an 11% uptick in admissions year-on-year. This curious scenario unfolded in the throes of a global pandemic that had wrought havoc on higher education systems.

IOE’s Natalia Maloshonok, Svetlana Zhuchkova, Saule Bekova, and Evgeniy Terentev have set off on a quest to unveil the forces that have led to the surge in doctoral enrollments in Russia amid the pandemic, and the potential consequences looming on the horizon.

The latest issue of ‘Higher Education in Russia & Beyond,’ an international journal published quarterly by HSE and the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College (USA), IOE’s long-standing partner for a diverse research agenda, looks at how doctoral education has been evolving in different nations and over various timeframes. A brief by IOE experts Saule Bekova and Ivan Smirnov gives a glimpse of key factors that have been reshaping the sentiment towards doctoral studies in Russia. In his contribution, Evgeny Terentev of the IOE Center for Sociology of Higher Education discusses the main sources of academic support to PhD candidates at Russian universities.