Abstract:

The aim of this work was to know the importance of the establishment of an International PhD degree/collaboration and the current state of such programmes in Europe. To this aim, a short survey was developed under the framework of the European project ISEKI FOOD 4 “Towards the innovation of the food chain through the modernization of Food Studies” (project number 518415-LLP-1-2011-1-IT-ERASMUS-ENW, www.iseki-food4.eu). This survey consisted of two sections: one asking about the implementation of doctoral joint programs, collaborations between other universities at doctoral level, International Doctoral degrees and about PhD courses taught in English in each institution; in the second part of the survey, the perception of the importance of this International degree/collaboration was evaluated, together with the main barriers encountered to implement it. A total of 55 responses were collected from the different partners, which belong to different higher education institutions from 23 countries.

The results showed that almost all the respondent (around 91%) agreed about the importance of the establishment of such an International degree/collaboration at PhD level at their institution. The main barriers encountered to implement such International PhD degree/collaboration was the lack of financial resources. This was found to be the most limiting factor, but also the presence of bureaucracy constraints (rigidity of the institution, national legislation, university rules …), lack of time and poor knowledge of foreign language were also considered to be important.