ENLIGHT agreement will simplify joint doctoral education programmes
A new joint framework agreement within ENLIGHT is set to reduce administration and create better conditions for supervision and research across national borders. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt, Uppsala University.
Joint doctoral education with other universities within ENLIGHT is about to get simpler. A new common framework is reducing administration and creating better conditions for supervision and research across national borders.
Anders Hagfeldt, Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University and Chair of ENLIGHT, at the time of signing the framework agreement. Photo: Andrew Downes, xposure.
The vice-chancellors of the ten universities within ENLIGHT have signed a common framework agreement for doctoral education programmes. The agreement was signed at the ENLIGHT alliance’s annual meeting at the University of Galway in early June. Uppsala University’s Vice-Chancellor Anders Hagfeldt signed the agreement on behalf of the University.
The agreement applies to all ten partner universities and all disciplines. It contains common principles for supervision, examination and the public defence when a doctoral student completes their doctoral education collaboratively between two ENLIGHT universities.
Reducing administration
Joint doctoral education involving universities in different countries is not a new phenomenon. To date, however, such collaborations have often required extensive negotiations and separate agreements between the universities concerned. Differences between national and university rules and procedures have made this process very time-consuming.
“We often talk about the University being very open and that we are international by nature. This agreement is a way of demonstrating, administratively and concretely, that we stand by our principles,” says Vice-Chancellor Anders Hagfeldt.
The new framework agreement provides the universities with a common foundation to start from. It does not mean that all doctoral education programmes within ENLIGHT will be collaborations, or that individual agreements will disappear. However, it should make it faster and easier for two partner universities to agree on a joint trajectory for a doctoral student. The universities’ own rules and national legislation continue to apply.
New opportunities for researchers and doctoral students
For researchers and supervisors at Uppsala University, the agreement will make it easier to develop doctoral student collaborations with colleagues at other ENLIGHT universities.
For doctoral students, such an arrangement may involve supervision at two universities, access to a range of research environments and the opportunity to spend part of their doctoral studies at another university. After completion of the programme, the doctoral student can receive a doctoral degree from both universities.
The agreement has been jointly developed by the ENLIGHT universities in a project coordinated by Ghent University. The work began with an expert workshop on joint doctoral education programmes in autumn 2024 and is part of the ENLIGHT Doctoral Network.
Anders Berndt
Joint doctoral education programmes
A joint doctoral education programme, often referred to as a joint PhD or cotutelle, involves a doctoral student doing their doctoral studies in a collaboration between two universities.
This can include:
- supervision at both universities
- residencies and research in both of these environments
- forms of joint assessment and public defence of the doctoral thesis
- the opportunity to obtain a doctoral degree from both universities on completion of the programme.
The ENLIGHT agreement applies to all ten partner universities and all subject areas.