Challenges and opportunities for the supervisory practice in response to changes in modern doctorate

Abstract

The research findings give prominence to the debates in the educational, social, cultural, economic and political context on modern doctorate as a whole and doctoral supervision in particular as an integrated complex of activities, in which supervisors have to respond to the growth and diversification of the PhD candidates. The innovations recommended by the Salzburg Principles and involved all the facets of doctoral training, as well as the milestone events in doctoral education reforming are highlighted. Prerequisites for change in the supervision structure, including the transition from an obsolete and irrelevant traditional supervision model to a multiple supervision model (double, joint or panel supervision), from the traditional person-to-person relationship between a supervisor and a supervisee to a more structured and regulated supervision procedure are determined. The requirements of the UK Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education clearly outlining the roles and responsibilities of supervisors and doctoral students, as well as the criteria for defining the eligibility and capacity of a supervisor are specified in the context of doctoral supervisory practices. Experience and best practices of some European universities, in particular those of the United Kingdom and Australia as the first countries to develop their best supervisory practice models in the 1990s, forming the basis for a supervision culture and the guide for supervisors to undergo voluntary or mandatory supervisory training and to develop methodology and toolkits for PhD supervision process are specified in detail. The most formidable challenges of supervisor training and professional development are defined, and the ways of overcoming them are analyzed. The recommendations of Helmut Brentel, an advisor of doctoral supervisors at European universities, on the ways of ensuring high-quality supervisory practice to be taken into consideration by universities and individual supervisors in their practices in order to ensure quality in supervision by providing an integrated set of actions, measures and tools are specified.