Adapting doctoral education to an evolving knowledge landscape: insights from Portugal

In the dynamic landscape of knowledge production, a new era has emerged, characterised by increasing complexity, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration with a diverse range of stakeholders. This aims to foster relevant and impactful knowledge to address socially relevant challenges. These developments have significant implications for doctoral education, requiring adaptability in its foundations, objectives, methods, and expertise. This study investigates how Portuguese doctoral education is adapting to the expanding boundaries of knowledge creation. It draws on the analysis of qualitative data from 118 websites of doctoral programmes offered by 27 Portuguese universities, as well as focus groups and individual interviews with 31 doctoral candidates selected from 11 doctoral programmes across three public universities. Findings suggest that Portuguese doctoral education reflects the complexity of contemporary knowledge production. It appears to be evolving from a largely theoretical foundation to a more practical one. Furthermore, it emphasises a dual focus on applied and fundamental research objectives and underscores the significance of interdisciplinary approaches and collaborative expertise. However, the overarching trends unveiled by this study also reveal nuances, reflecting ongoing debates concerning the complexities and interdisciplinary nature of knowledge production, as well as the evolving roles of doctoral education in addressing these challenges.