Abstract:

In recent decades, doctoral education in Europe has undergone significant changes, including the establishment of organisational structures like doctoral schools or colleges. These structures play a crucial role in helping universities to integrate doctoral education with research, fostering a cohesive and supportive environment for doctoral programmes, and enhancing the overall efficiency, regulation, and visibility of doctoral training by promoting interdisciplinary approaches, skill development, and alignment with societal demands.

Despite their importance, there is limited research on these structures in Portugal, likely due to their novelty and limited prevalence. To bridge this gap, a study explored established structures in the country, focusing on their characteristics, such as institutional implementation models, mission, objectives, and activity domains. Organisational structures were identified through a thorough search across the websites of all Portuguese universities. Data analysis involved examining the structures’ websites and regulations. Thematic content analysis was conducted using NVivo, based on an analysis grid with two analysis dimensions: the structure’s institutional implementation context and activity domains.

Using institutional theory as a lens to discuss its findings, the study illustrates how Portuguese universities, lacking national regulation, adapt to European influences and trends when establishing these organisational structures. Normative and mimetic forces, driven by the need for legitimacy and survival shape this adaptation. However, while establishing these structures, universities maintain autonomy and diversity, customising external influences to fit their unique interests, resources, and culture. Organisational structures emerge as autonomous entities displaying some fluidity in terms of institutional implementation models, reflected in hybrid settings. Moreover, they are associated with distinct mission and objectives. The former is primarily linked with enhancing excellence in doctoral education, deemed crucial for academic quality and reputation. The latter, include offering supervision support, transversal training, and providing an institutional framework for doctoral programmes, aligning with current trends and challenges in knowledge production and dissemination. Structures also encompass distinct activity domains, covering advanced training, supervision, additional training, student professional development, and collaboration. While these areas of focus meet the expectations of various stakeholders, they are not entirely aligned with those identified in other studies regarding these structures.

Although organisational structures play a crucial role in enhancing doctoral education, they are not yet widespread in Portugal, with fewer than half of universities, mostly public ones, adopting them. Their limited prevalence suggests there are implementation challenges hindering their establishment. The study offers insights for policymakers and institutional leaders to overcome these challenges, along with suggestions for future research on organisational structures in doctoral education.

Keywords:

Doctoral Education, Organisational structures, Doctoral school/college, University adaptation, Institutional theory, Portugal.