Learning from Ph.D. education in the IB field: The Nord-IB experience

During their education, doctoral students are exposed to a significant amount of activities via mandatory participation in various research seminars and course work with students from different fields. Building connections in academia helps PhD candidates to create long-lasting relationships with peers and establish a fruitful environment for future partnership in doing research. This has major implications on the career in academia for a prospective scholar. The nature of the current PhD courses, very often organized in single modules, or attended in host institutions during a short time, does not allow scholars to build strong relationships with other doctoral students and to create a cohort of peers that would share common and similar research interest. The scholars, when acting as supervisors, and more in general the graduate schools, should acknowledge the weaknesses of the current PhD education structure. Adopting an alternative approach could create positive effects both on PhD education in general, and indirectly on the stimulation of academic creativity and cooperation. This paper focuses on the activities that doctorate students can undertake, when organizing their graduate studies. We believe our suggestions have positive implications on network building and consequently on students’ performance and their professional development as prospective scholars.