PhD students need global outlook to tackle challenges

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a comprehensive framework for a more sustainable and equitable development of the world. To achieve the SDGs, we need collaboration on a global scale and intense mutual learning and exchange, and doctoral education can play a crucial role.

Here, internationalisation has an important role to play, across different dimensions. These include exposing doctoral candidates to international experiences (either at home or abroad), building global research partnerships and including global perspectives in research, training and education.

The sharing of ideas, knowledge and skills across borders and continents contributes to shaping well-rounded scholars and professionals that can address a multiplicity of emerging global issues.

Impact of mobility

Gaining international expertise plays a crucial role in the personal and professional development of doctoral candidates. Having experienced different research environments, methodologies and viewpoints, doctoral candidates can strengthen their critical thinking and their adaptability to new and unfamiliar contexts. It also allows them to enhance their collaborative skills.

International exposure can also be critical for building a global network of contacts with peers and senior scholars, which is a fundamental basis for research collaborations and careers.

Through being mobile, doctoral candidates experience differences and similarities across various world regions. Thanks to this, they are able to more holistically and impactfully address the complex framework of the SDGs and to understand how different dimensions can interact.

Researchers who work abroad also gain knowledge of local and indigenous knowledge and perspectives, leading to a better understanding of the interconnectedness of social and technical challenges.

This also leads to a better understanding of how certain SDGs, such as poverty reduction and combatting climate change, are linked.

Additionally, international expertise allows for a better understanding of different institutional contexts. When a European doctoral candidate spends a year on another continent they get first-hand experience of how academic practices (and academic careers) can differ. They also become aware of the core values that underpin academia, which transcend national boundaries.

The incorporation of global perspectives into doctoral education allows candidates to develop a comprehensive understanding of the challenges they are addressing and consider diverse viewpoints. Moreover, it fosters the development of viable and sustainable solutions in different contexts.

Global research collaboration

International experience in doctoral education does not only impact doctoral candidates but also their institutions. Collaborative doctoral projects between universities worldwide contribute to global capacity-building, leading to innovative solutions. Joint supervision agreements or co-supervision enable universities to combine expertise and resources, which results in stronger research outcomes and fosters deeper partnerships.

Access to research infrastructures, often available through international collaborations, is crucial for conducting research. This is particularly true in situations where home institutions do not have the means to acquire such technology.

Doctoral candidates can serve as the glue in global research collaboration. Additionally, accessing research infrastructures outside the home institution raises awareness of potential technical or methodological solutions not available at home institutions.

However, all these positive impacts do not happen just by having a doctoral candidate travelling from A to B. It is essential to provide the necessary conditions and be aware of associated risks and challenges.

Providing the appropriate structure (in home and visiting institutions) is an important condition, including to address the diverse needs of international doctoral candidates. These structures should facilitate integration into the host institution and country and provide the necessary support in terms of language, culture and administration, as well as mental health.

The dilemma of travel

In addition, time plays a critical role. ‘Helicopter research’, where a scholar flies in and out without engaging with the wider community, cannot achieve this. Rather, researchers need the necessary time to be able to fully engage with the context of the host, and also to bring in their perspective from home.

While acquiring international expertise is crucial for contributing to the SDGs, the mobility associated with scientific research, particularly air travel, faces criticism due to its high environmental cost.

This leads to a dilemma: while achieving the SDGs needs more interconnectedness, the means to achieve it can go against sustainability principles. In addition, not everybody is able to travel. For example, a lack of resources, or family duties, can make it impossible to spend a longer amount of time abroad.

While this dilemma has not been solved yet, it shows the need to discuss how the most impactful international mobility can be achieved. Raising awareness of global challenges and the ways they are being addressed in different contexts strengthens the international expertise needed to solve today’s problems.

In this regard, this expertise not only increases the quality and impact of the results of research, but also contributes to training the scholars who can best tackle what lies ahead.

Alexander Hasgall is head of the European University Association Council for Doctoral Education.