On January 18th, the recently launched DocTalent4EU project held its first event, an online roundtable discussion aimed at gathering feedback on the challenges and actions needed to improve training and career development for PhD candidates. The insights gathered during the panel session will be used to refine and improve the objectives and activities of the Horizon Europe project DocTalent4EU, which kicked off on January 1st, 2023.
The keynote presentation started with a description of the main challenges that researchers face, such as precarious working conditions and uncertainty about possible career paths outside academia. To tackle these issues, the European Commission (EC) has put forward a series of EU policy initiatives and tools aimed at improving PhD candidates’ training and awareness of skills, and increasing collaborations and opportunities beyond academia. Some of these initiatives include the EU framework for research careers, ESCO, ResearchComp, and the ERA talent platform.
The keynote speech was followed by a presentation of the results and/or plans of three EU-funded projects focused on improving skills training and career development for PhD candidates. These projects included DocEnhance, DocTalent4EU, and the PhDHub portal.
Afterwards, a panel discussion followed suit where five invited speakers from the academic and non-academic sector shared their insights on how universities can improve skills training and career development for PhD candidates. In particular, the session revolved around the challenges that PhD holders face when entering the job market and possible solutions on how to overcome them.
The speakers highlighted that PhD candidates do not necessarily have access to professional networks outside of academia. To increase the exposure to the non-academic sector, several structures and initiatives were discussed, such as promoting supervision from industry representatives, offering traineeships in the non-academic sector, and inviting representatives from the non-academic sector to seminars and events.
The DocTalent4EU project leaders are now incorporating the feedback received into the project’s objectives and activities to improve the training and career development of PhD candidates.