Abstract:

In the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and other countries, a doctorate degree is required to pursue an academic career at the university. In fact, in the past most people who did a PhD stayed in academia. However, the new European doctorate teaching paradigm is the result of a recognition of the need to incorporate PhD holders into the job market, so as to promote a knowledge-based economy and society. Actually, although a doctoral degree is not explicitly included in many job requirements, employers value transversal doctoral skills beyond subject-specialisation, such as problem-solving ability and creative thinking.

Not only the functions of doctoral education are changing but the heterogeneity of PhD students is also increasing, and consequently the occupational destination of doctors is receiving a special attention from professional associations and government organisations. While there is a great deal of information on how many PhDs work for academia, it is much more difficult to analyse the situation of those working in other professional fields.

In this sense, the aim of this work is to analyse the occupational destination for the PhD graduates of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). To this purpose, two main information sources have been used. The first one is the Basque Employment Service (LANBIDE) provided by the Basque Government, which accompanies and guide basque people in their job search process. The second one is the Employment Centre (EC) of the UPV/EHU, which supports the search for employment for graduates and doctors through several actions such as the Employment Fair.

Thus, the methodology used in this work consists on analysing the occupational data for UPV/EHU doctors provided by both LANBIDE and EC. The results indicate that the unemployment is nearly inexistent for UPV/EHU doctors and, furthermore, that their jobs completely match their doctoral skills.

Keywords:

Doctorate degree, doctoral skills, occupational destination, The Basque Country.