Abstract:

Doctoral programmes play a key role in training early-career researchers and preparing them for professional paths in academia, industry and research institutions. Ensuring high-quality doctoral training requires understanding the conditions under which doctoral candidates conduct their research. Institutional monitoring indicators provide valuable evidence on recruitment patterns, student diversity, supervision capacity and funding conditions, allowing programmes to identify strengths and areas for improvement affecting the doctoral student experience. This study analyses the monitoring indicators of the PhD programme Research, Development and Drug Control at the University of Barcelona. The programme is hosted at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences and integrates researchers from several departments together with collaborators from research institutes, hospitals and the pharmaceutical sector. One department from the Faculty of Medicine also participates, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the programme and its strong connection with biomedical research environments. The analysis is based on institutional monitoring data collected between 2020 and 2025 and includes indicators related to offered places, applications, admissions, doctoral student profiles, internationalisation, availability of predoctoral funding, distribution of doctoral candidates across research lines and supervision conditions. The programme offers 25 doctoral positions annually, while admissions fluctuate depending on the availability of funded research projects and the supervisory capacity of research groups. The doctoral population shows high diversity: approximately 71% of doctoral candidates are women and around one third come from international universities, demonstrating the programme’s capacity to attract international talent. Monitoring indicators also reveal structural challenges related to doctoral funding. Only about 17% of doctoral candidates hold competitive predoctoral contracts, a proportion considered relatively low for an experimental biomedical programme where doctoral research typically requires full-time dedication to laboratory work. In the 2024-2025 academic year, four doctoral candidates were enrolled through the Industrial Doctorate scheme, illustrating alternative funding pathways linked to collaboration with the pharmaceutical sector. At the same time, several indicators highlight programme strengths. The ratio between academic staff and doctoral candidates enables close supervision and personalised guidance. Doctoral candidates undergo annual progress evaluation through research plans and monitoring committees, ensuring continuous follow-up of their doctoral projects. Satisfaction surveys and employment indicators also suggest high levels of satisfaction and strong professional integration of graduates in research, innovation and higher-education sectors. Overall, the systematic analysis of programme indicators provides valuable insights into how doctoral training environments function in research-intensive fields. By identifying the program’s strengths, such as internationalisation, strong supervision structures and collaboration with industry, as well as structural challenges related to doctoral funding, monitoring indicators become a powerful tool to guide evidence-based improvements in doctoral education and to strengthen the research environment offered to doctoral candidates.

Keywords:

Doctoral education, PhD programme monitoring, Institutional indicators, Doctoral supervision, Higher education quality improvement, Biomedical doctoral training.