Doctoral training: What is
the issue, what measures
are in place and what can
universities do?
29 August 2016
Rinske van den Berg
European Commission
Open Science & ERA Policy
• "The Swedish start-up community is standing behind
Spotify, after the streaming music service threatened to
leave the country if the government didn’t do more to
support fast-growing tech firms.
• Spotify’s open letter to the government is a dramatic sign
of the frustration in Sweden’s tech community. Spotify
want the country to lower taxes on stock options to help
attract talent, improve IT training in schools and make the
housing market more dynamic."
Change academic culture
(from 09 technologist.EU, July 2016)
• Two experts share their thoughts on how academia can be more
business oriented:
• The walls between various disciplines, between research
and education and between institutions are often too high –
many academics see research as an end in itself and take a
negative view of its commercialiation… By cooperating
closely, for example by exchanging students, providing
joint PhD courses and joinlty developing papers – by
teaching that it is OK to think about entrepreneurship.
European Capital of Innovation 2016
Carlos Moedas: "Amsterdam fully deserves to
be our European Capital of Innovation for its
holistic vision of innovation in and for the
city..… a shining examples of how cities
can put innovation to work to improve
the way people live and businesses work."
Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director
for Education and Skills
• “Without the right skills, people will languish on the
margins of society, technological progress will slow and
countries will struggle in the global economy,”
• “Governments must improve their education system and
work with business and unions to develop fair and inclusive
policies so that everyone can participate fully in society.”
"Open science: share and succeed"
Speech by Moedas in Amsterdam April 4, 2016
• “…. a student from Kazakhstan and Founder of Sci-Hub, has
an online database of nearly 50 million pirated academic
journal articles. To some, she is "The Robin Hood of
Science." To others, she is a notorious cyber-criminal."
• Is this a sign that academic journals will face the same fate
as the music and media industries? If so … then scientific
publishing is about to be transformed.
• We need to open up to a new publishing culture, with new
business models…."
"The future of market-creating
research and innovation in Europe"
•
from speech Moedas April 2016, Mannheim
• "Future economic value will lie in how we combine the
digital with the physical and biological and the people who
will capture this value will be our researchers, scientists and
innovators….
• Open to the World is …….collaboration through diversity.
• And diversity is something we have bucket loads of in
Europe!"
European Research Area
(Article 179 of the Treaty)
"in which, researchers, scientific
knowledge and technology will
circulate freely"
-like a single market•
“An open labour market for
researchers”
To achieve ERA Priority 3, MS + AC identified as a
priority
Improving inter-sectoral mobility between public and
private sector research bodies in both directions and at
all career stages
Innovative Doctoral Training
tools and processes
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
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Charter & Code, HR Strategy 4 Researchers
Innovative doctoral training principles (IDTP)
Open, transparent and merit-based recruitment (OTM-R)
Pensions (RESAVER)
EURAXESS new portal, focus Business & Industry
Bratislava Declaration of Young Scientists
 Open Science Policy Platform… Researchers
Rewards and Skills - Removing barriers and
obstacles
Open Innovation –
• "Helping Europe to capitalise on the results of
R&I and create shared economic and social value
by bringing more actors into the innovation
process, boosting investment, maximising the
impact of innovation and creating the right
innovation ecosystem"
• Horizon 2020 is designed to support research and innovation in
Europe and deliver on European R&I policy objectives.
Open Science –
"Supporting new ways of doing research and
diffusing knowledge by using digital technologies
and new collaborative tools, to ensure excellent
science and open access to data and results and
help Europe benefit from digitisation to drive
innovation"
Open to the World • "Fostering international cooperation to access
and attract global excellence and to make the
EU's strengths in R&I help tackle global societal
challenges effectively, to create business
opportunities in new and emerging markets, and
enhance external policy through science
diplomacy"
Top 10 list of alternative careers for
PhD STEM Graduates
1. Market Research Analyst
2. Business Development Manager
3. Competitive Intelligence Analyst
4. Product Manager
5. Management Consulting
6. Quantitative Analyst
7. Medical Communication Specialist
8. Healthcare Information Technology Specialist
9. Operations Research Analyst
10.Medical Science Liaison
Modern postgraduate education:
what is the issue
 Around 120,000 new PhD graduates per year in EU
 Only 45% of all researchers in EU in private sector (vs 78% in
US and 74% in Japan).
 Strong structural barriers to inter-sectoral mobility:
recruitment rules, transfer of social rights, difference of
cultures, IPR, lack of incentives ….
 Need skills to work outside academia: One in ten PhDs report
receiving skills training
Joint ongoing efforts…
 Assure sustainable funding for the full implementation of the IDTP
 Jointly devise a communication strategy for explaining the
advantages of doing a 'Doctorate in Europe'
 Contribute to an on-going mapping of European, national and
regional structures for the exchange of experience on doctoral
training and inter-sectoral collaboration (hubs, IT villages, start-ups,
accelerators, etc)
 Open Science Policy Platform (September 2016)
 New Skills Agenda (June 2016) & Modernised HEI Agenda
(September 2016)
 Bratislava Declaration on Young Scientists (July, November 2016)
Thank you