European Journal of Higher Education

ISSN: 2156-8235 (Print) 2156-8243 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rehe20

Structuralization of doctoral education in

Germany: an interdisciplinary comparison

Lin Qin

To cite this article: Lin Qin (2017) Structuralization of doctoral education in Germany: an
interdisciplinary comparison, European Journal of Higher Education, 7:3, 261-275, DOI:
10.1080/21568235.2017.1290876

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2017.1290876

Published online: 16 Feb 2017.

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 2017
VOL. 7, NO. 3, 261–275
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2017.1290876

Structuralization of doctoral education in Germany: an

interdisciplinary comparison
Lin Qin
Research Center for International Comparative Education, National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing,
People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Taking the establishment of structured doctoral programmes in Received 27 December 2016
Germany as an example, this paper focuses on how knowledge Accepted 30 January 2017
production in certain academic fields reshapes their doctoral
KEYWORDS
education in a widely changing policy context. Based on case studies Doctoral education; German
of eight graduate schools in three research fields, namely economics, higher education; knowledge
life sciences, and literature–cultural studies, this paper illustrates the production; disciplines
different components of structured doctoral programmes in the
above three fields, and analyses the heterogeneity in the motivation
and pathways of doctoral education reform. This paper concludes
that the structured doctoral programmes in Germany manifest
several characteristics of the new mode of knowledge production.
However, these characteristics have very different implications for
different academic fields, which should be taken into consideration
when making relevant policies.

Introduction
In 1810, based on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s vision of a new type of university, the University
of Berlin was founded as the first research university in the world. Humboldt’s idea of a unit of
research and teaching became an essential characteristic of the German university and has
shaped its doctoral training in many ways. Until today, doctoral education in Germany still
largely follows the model established in the nineteenth century. Based on the ‘chair–insti-
tute–faculty’ structure of German university, professors (chair holders) take charge of
research and training and are given high authority and broad autonomy. A large proportion
of doctoral candidates in Germany are working as teaching and research assistants to pro-
fessors at universities and non-university research institutions, under employment contracts.
For those candidates who take this traditional, individual way to pursue doctorates, there is
usually no standard procedure or examination for admission, nor is coursework always
required. Doctoral supervisors not only guide candidates’ research, but also serve as the
chair on her/his dissertation committee. This model of doctoral training is described as the
‘Master-apprenticeship model’ (Janson, Schomburg, and Teichler 2008, 60).
Doctoral education has been much criticized in Germany since the 1980s. Among those
frequently mentioned problems are the isolation of doctoral candidates, lack of transpar-
ency, long durations, overspecialization, and inadequate advising (HRK 1996). Then in the

CONTACT Lin Qin qinl@nies.net.cn

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
262 L. QIN

mid-1980s, funded by the Fritz Tyssen Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, Volkswa-
gen Foundation, and the German Research Foundation (DFG), ‘research training groups’
(Graduiertenkollegs) were set up in Germany to train doctoral candidates in a more struc-
tured, interdisciplinary, and cooperated way (DFG 2010, 6). Since the beginning of the
New Millennium, reform initiatives in doctoral education have been brought up to the
EU level to address the challenges of the emerging knowledge society, and to strengthen
European competitiveness for talents and research. After the 2003 Berlin Communiqué of
the Bologna Process, stating that doctoral education should be included in the process as
the third cycle, the 2005 Salzburg Principles of the European University Association
(EUA) issued clear guidelines for doctoral education, including institutional responsibil-
ities, the crucial role of supervision, innovative structures for interdisciplinary training,
and transferable skills development, quality assurance, etc. (2005). Under this framework,
more doctoral programmes, graduate schools, and doctoral centres have been set up in
Germany over the last decade.
Today in Germany, some 45 graduate schools have been established by the ‘Excellence
Initiative’ of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the DFG; 185 research train-
ing groups are currently funded by the DFG (as of 25 February 2016, the DFG listed on its
website); and there are many other doctoral schools and centres with various organizational
features and supported by different sponsors. Although different in their names and insti-
tutional structures, these schools/groups/centres all offer some kind of structured doctoral
programmes which usually have a selective admission process, a doctoral curriculum, and
certain procedures for quality control. International competitiveness and interdisciplinarity
are also highlighted in the profiles of many programmes. Parallel to the traditional individual
doctoral programme that is still widespread, these structured programmes represent a rela-
tively new but more and more common way to pursue a doctorate in Germany.
In this big picture of doctoral reform in Germany and Europe, more case studies are needed
to understand changes in doctoral training on the micro level. This paper takes Germany as an
example, and tries to connect two angles – disciplines/fields and country-specific context.
Each discipline or field, with its own epistemological and social/cultural characteristics,
shapes and regulates its doctoral training, respectively, determining not only the content of
doctoral training, but also its formats in many regards. Meanwhile, country-specific
context defines the institutional framework and pathway of reforms. Based on the qualitative
study of eight graduate schools/structured doctoral programmes in Germany from three
research fields, namely economics, life sciences, and literature–cultural studies, this paper
addresses the following questions: compared to the conventional model of research training,
what has indeed been changed in these structured doctoral programmes? What is the main
motivation of academic communities to establish structured doctoral programmes? Are aca-
demic communities in different disciplines or fields following the same pathway to reform
their doctoral education? How does knowledge production in specific academic fields
reshape doctoral education in the commonly changing policy context?

The starting point – knowledge production and doctoral education in a

changing context
Since the early nineteenth century, when the Humboldtian university concept became preva-
lent in Germany, research has become a fundamental mission of higher education institutions
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 263

in many parts of the world. The linking of research with teaching and learning is widely con-
sidered a basic feature of modern higher education (Clark 1993), whereby research also
becomes an essential element of advanced study. Doctoral education in modern higher edu-
cation system is de facto research-orientated training and learning.1 Doctoral students are
taught not only advanced knowledge of a specific academic field, but also the paradigm, meth-
odology, and skills to conduct research in this field. They are ‘learning by doing,’ either parti-
cipating in cooperative research projects or conducting research on their own. Finally, to apply
for the degree, doctoral candidates must independently accomplish an original, creative scien-
tific work, namely the dissertation, as proof of their knowledge and research ability.
The intensified scientific inquiry of academics since the nineteenth century has been
accompanied by growing and multiplying of disciplines and specialties (Clark 1993) consti-
tuting the fundamental structure of modern science and higher education. Each academic
group (discipline or specialty) regulates its research and academic activities within its own
territory, with a set of theories, paradigms, and rules. Doctoral students who are apprentices
of academia also comply with this kind of regulation. The selecting of their research topics,
the organizing of their training, and the evaluation of their research work are all following
the constitution of the very academic group to which they belong.
In the past few decades, significant changes in science and research have been observed and
widely discussed by scholars in the sociology of science, higher education research, and public
policy study. Research projects in natural sciences have expanded enormously in scale, invol-
ving a great number of research staff, large and expensive laboratories, as well as big govern-
ment budgets, leading to an era of ‘Big Science’ (Price 1963). Research is becoming more and
more expensive, increasingly relying on third-party funding from both public and private
sponsors, and is therefore being defined as ‘Mandated Science’ (Salter 1988). The univer-
sity–industry–government relationship becomes more interdependent for innovation and
economic development (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1995). Knowledge production is no
more an exclusive duty of universities and research institutions, but is diffusing among
many sectors and organizations, becoming more socially accountable. It is more context-
driven, problem-oriented, interdisciplinary, and diversified in terms of organizational struc-
ture, and is therefore described as Mode 2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al. 1994). Glo-
balization is also a factor in this changing context, drastically increasing mobility of knowledge
and knowledge workers around the world and drawing great concern in policy discussions.
There are some debates about whether a new mode of knowledge production has
indeed formed and whether it can be clearly distinguished from the ‘old’ mode (Hessels
and van Lente 2008). However, since the changes mentioned above are widely observed
and discussed, there is no doubt that these changes do represent some new trends in scien-
tific research, which could impact concepts and ways of research training. In current dis-
cussions about doctoral education, interdisciplinarity, global competence, social
accountability, efficiency, and transferable skills have been frequently mentioned, and con-
stitute the core values of many reform initiatives. In Germany, structured doctoral pro-
grammes in contrast to the traditional individual study is a good example to observe
how these new trends in knowledge production help reshaping doctoral training. Mean-
while, by looking into the practice of structured research training in specific research
fields, we can distinguish the values that each academic community appreciates from
reform discourses in policy discussion, and therefore understand the inner motivation
of academic community to reform their research training.
264 L. QIN

Methodology
This study takes a qualitative research approach involving interviews and case studies.
Eight graduate schools/doctoral programmes were selected in the three fields of econ-
omics, life sciences, and literature/cultural studies. To achieve a good degree of represen-
tativeness, this study follows the frequently cited ‘three culture’ (Kagan 2001) classification
of disciplines, namely natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, in selecting the
three academic fields. The founders or cofounders of the eight graduate schools/doctoral
programmes belong to 11 universities in eastern, central, and western Germany. There are
two graduate schools in life science, two graduate schools and one doctoral programme in
economics, and two graduate schools along with one research training group in literature–
cultural studies. These cases are quite diversified in their history, the sizes of student and
faculty bodies, and their organizational structure and funding models. However, in con-
trast to the traditional master-apprenticeship model of doctoral training, all these struc-
tured doctoral programmes have a clear training concept, a programme plan, open and
competitive admission, teaching elements, and certain procedures of quality control.
For each case, text-based data such as regulations, programme introductions, and cur-
riculum plans were collected. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 pro-
fessors who are also directors or founders of their programmes and 14 doctoral
students. For each programme, at least one professor/director and one student were inter-
viewed. Questions for professors included the history of the programme/school, the
motivation in setting up the programme, procedures of enrolment, content and organiz-
ation of courses, style of supervising, evaluation of dissertations, as well as their experience
and reflection about changes in research training in their fields. Questions for students
mainly focus on their personal experience in each phase of study, from application to
applying the degree, especially those particular arrangements of structured programmes,
like course work, joint supervision, and annual research reports. The style of supervision
is also a key topic. Data from interviews have been coded and categorized. Factual descrip-
tions from interviews were analysed together with text-based data to construct a compre-
hensive picture of each programme, while subjective descriptions were categorized and
annotated for different subjects. Then, common features among programmes in the
same field were analysed for further comparison among different fields.
In the following sections, this paper will describe the key characteristics of structured
doctoral programmes in the three fields, one by one, and analyse the motivation and
pathway of each academic community to establish structured doctoral programmes,
with the focus on the interaction between knowledge production of the specific academic
field and its research training.

The case of economics: structuralization towards a globalized knowledge

production
Standard admission criterion and process
The three programmes in economics have very similar arrangements for admission.
Application is open for both domestic and international students with formal procedure
and strict time plan. The documents required for the three programmes are exactly the
same: curriculum vitae, letter of motivation, academic transcripts, GRE scores, TOEFL
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 265

scores (if applicant is not a native English speaker or not graduated from an institution in
English-speaking countries), and two recommendation letters. These requirements are
also quite similar among doctoral programmes in most leading economics graduate
schools around the world.
Unlike traditional humanities and social sciences faculties at German universities,
where professors (chair holders) usually select doctoral apprentices ‘by hand,’ admission
to these structured programmes is more formal, transparent, and following strict criteria.
According to the professors interviewed, academic transcripts are the most important
reference for assessing applicants’ qualification, and only the top-ranking students are
considered to be competitive. Interviews with applicants are optional, and some students
in these programmes actually had no personal contact with their future supervisors until
they were enrolled. As the process, requirements, and even time plan of admission are
quite similar among different programmes in Germany and abroad, graduate schools
for economics at German universities are facing fierce competition globally for the best
candidates.

Intensive coursework as key component

Although coursework is a typical component of structured doctoral programmes in vir-
tually all fields, it is a more essential part for doctoral programmes in economics. All pro-
grammes have a two-year ‘residency’ course phase, with a very structuralized and
standardized curriculum. All programmes have the same core courses, and even use the
same textbooks. Compared with other fields, doctoral courses in economics involve
very hard and intensive work. The students interviewed constantly mentioned how chal-
lenging and time-consuming those courses are and how stressful they are before each test.
Even though they have done really well in their undergraduate study, it is a much bigger
challenge for them to master the theories, models, formulas, and methods required for
advanced study. Therefore, they have to throw themselves into coursework during the
first two years and thus do not have much time for papers or research projects.
The professors and doctoral students interviewed believe that intensive coursework is
essential in order to be able to conduct research in their field. Because of its deep roots
in mathematics and a strong convergence on research topics, contemporary economics
research depends heavily on a suite of ‘formal knowledge’ and ‘formal methods’ that
are not fully studied in undergraduate programmes in an era of mass higher education.
‘In the world of economics, there is a huge gap between what everyone is learning in
general education, and what the tiny few are doing in research,’ as one professor put it.
Meanwhile, ‘the knowledge and methods required for economic research are neither
easy to teach nor easy to learn.’ Therefore, structured programmes with standard and
intensive coursework are very popular in economics for better preparing doctoral students
with these knowledge and methods. As another professor said, ‘all the leading graduate
schools in economics around the world are doing exactly the same thing.’

Dense academic communication vs. a loose student–supervisor connection

In a convergent discipline like economics, where research population is distributed very
densely around research problems, it is very important for researchers to update their
266 L. QIN

knowledge and be aware of what their peers are doing. Therefore, academic communi-
cation is considered to be essential for economists and becomes an important component
of structured doctoral programmes in this field. In the three cases, brownbag lectures and
doctoral colloquiums are held weekly. Students are required to present their research at
these occasions once in a while. More formal events include the gradate school’s annual
conferences and specific workshops held from time to time. Students are also very
active in attending regional and international conferences to present their working papers.
In contrast, the supervisor–student connection is relatively loose in these programmes.
After being admitted, some students do not have a supervisor at all until the third or fourth
semester. Some students even change their supervisors once or twice during their course of
study. They do not have daily contact with their supervisors as in the case of life science;
neither do they have very strong dependence on their supervisors as in literature–cultural
studies.
The dense academic communication and loose supervisor–student connection are two
sides of the same coin. In an open academic space that is filled with dense dialogues and
based on the formal knowledge and methods, doctoral students can get advising from
many academics, directly or indirectly. Then the dependence upon a single professor is
inevitably lessened.

Cumulative dissertation vs. the monographic dissertation

In the three cases, the cumulative dissertation is the normal form of doctoral thesis. A
cumulative dissertation usually consists of three or four separate working papers that
are then combined to one complete work, which is then evaluated. A working paper is
not necessarily a published paper, as the average review period for major economics jour-
nals is about 18 months, which makes it difficult for students to publish 3 or 4 papers
during their studies. However, it should ‘meet the requirements of peer-reviewed journals.’
All kinds of academic communication under the structure of graduate school function as
‘semi-peer review’ that helps students complete their working papers in a timely manner.
According to the professors interviewed, although there are still some faculties sticking
to the ‘single book style,’ the cumulative dissertation is becoming more and more common
among economic faculties in Germany. The convergent research topics, dense research
population, quickly updated knowledge, and severe competition in the world of economics
forced economists to make their research progress public as soon as possible, otherwise it
will ‘be out of date quickly.’ Therefore, working papers as well as cumulative dissertations
are considered to be a better way to train early stage researchers, and to evaluate their
knowledge and skills for participating in the thriving world of knowledge production,
and the fierce competition in their field.

Strong self-motivation of structuralization, and bottom-up initiatives

In an era of globalization, not only have the economic ties between countries been greatly
strengthened, but economic research has also become more homogenous and convergent,
which results in the significant growth in the international mobility of both knowledge and
intellectuals, as well as the competition they face. To address these challenges, economic
faculties at German universities welcome more structured, transparent, and
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 267

internationally recognizable programmes to attract the best brains and to build brand and
reputation for their institutions. Therefore, there is a very strong motive from inside the
academic group to establish structured doctoral programmes and graduate schools.
One professor who is also the cofounder of the doctoral programme he works for used
to work as a guest professor at an overseas university 15 years earlier. According to him,
There were many excellent students at that university who were planning to do PhD and seek
opportunities in the US and west Europe. At that time I realized that I have no way to send
them to Germany. The only thing I could offer is an assistant position under my chair, but
they would have to teach courses in German. When I came back, I began to discuss with my
colleagues about establishing this program.

Professors in economics show a stronger self-motivation to structuralize their doctoral

training and promote bottom-up initiatives, ever since the 1980s. In two of the three doc-
toral programmes in economics examined in this study, courses have been offered to doc-
toral students since the 1980s, before the programmes were officially established. Since the
2000s, due to great effort of many academics, several graduate schools in economics have
been established, supported by both public and private funding. Then the ‘Excellence
Initiative’ launched in 2005, offering these existed graduate schools and structured pro-
grammes a branch new opportunities to consolidate their foundations and to extend
their capacity through more stable funding and more administrative support. In several
leading economic faculties in Germany, the graduate school has already become the
formal structure for all doctoral study.
Based on the above analysis, this study has summarized the reforms on doctoral edu-
cation in economics as ‘structuralization towards globalized knowledge production’ to
emphasize the convergence in structure and context of training among doctoral pro-
grammes in Germany and other countries. This study will highlight the culture of inter-
national competition both for talent and for reputation in this field, which is a main
motive for reshaping doctoral training.

The case of the life sciences: structuralization for a Mode 2 knowledge

production
Continuous admission for the needs of research projects
Unlike graduate schools in the other two fields, where admission takes place at a
certain time each year, graduate schools in life science are admitting doctoral students
continuously, according to the needs of the research projects led by faculty members.
In Germany, doctoral students constitute the majority of research personnel in natural
sciences, and are usually working in research projects under contract while doing a
Ph.D. at the same time. In this context, a graduate school in the life sciences functions
as a unified platform of admission with competitive selection. Faculty members should
register their Ph.D. position openings at the platform and following certain
regulations.
Applicants are expected not only to have good academic performance in related sub-
jects, but are also desired to be familiar with a specific research problem and have
hands-on experience in certain research methods. ‘We need somebody to carry out the
designated research project right away,’ a professor said. That is why a typical description
268 L. QIN

of a Ph.D. position opening in life science usually contains very detailed information about
knowledge and skills required to conduct a specific research project.

Doctoral courses to introduce cutting-edge research methods and techniques

In the two graduate schools, doctoral students are required to attend a certain number of
courses, which takes approximately 8–10% of the total working hours of a three-year
period. Courses consist of lectures, seminars, practicals and professional skills training,
which are taught intensively in units or modules, usually twice a year, giving students
time to focus on research. The lists of core courses of the two schools show a very
strong emphasis on research methods and tools. Many courses are about instruction of
the most updated development of techniques and approaches in a specific field, intro-
duced by research teams and labs, or by industrial partners.
As described in the introduction brochure of one school, ‘scientific progress is depen-
dent both on the further development and refinement of research tools and methods and
on the application of these methods to cutting-edge problems using hypothesis-driven and
exploratory approaches,’ so introduction of the frontier methods and techniques is essen-
tial for doctoral study. ‘A doctoral thesis should be a cutting-edge research, using the most
updated methods and tools,’ the director of one school said.
Moreover, there are also professional skill courses about scientific writing, presentation
skills, intercultural communication, project management, ethics and conflict resolution,
etc. These transferrable skills are considered to be important competence for research pro-
fessions in the contemporary scientific world.

Redefining the supervisor–student relationship

At German universities, the traditional pyramid-like hierarchal structure of research
organization has changed dramatically in natural science over the last decades, resulting
in a more flat and dynamic structure. Doctoral students are working in small size research
units which are set up around specific research problems, directly supervised by the group
leaders in their daily work. In the past, if group leaders are junior professors or post-doc
researchers who do not have a ‘chair,’ they are not authorized to be official doctoral super-
visors and thesis reviewers. One common solution to this problem is that a professor who
is the director of many sub-teams serves as a ‘nominal supervisor’ of dozens of doctoral
students who are working in those groups, even though the two parties do not have
very close interaction in daily work. This situation brings about a separation of authority
and responsibility.
The structuralization of doctoral education has contributed to the relevant personnel
reforms at German universities. By amending the Ph.D. regulations, the two universities
that founded the two graduate schools of life sciences under examination in this study
have granted research group leaders the legal status of doctoral thesis reviewer. Thus,
they can now officially serve as doctoral supervisors and sign agreements with graduate
schools and doctoral students to commit their responsibility.
Meanwhile, as interdisciplinary research is the norm in the life sciences, doctoral stu-
dents usually need constant advising from faculty members of different backgrounds. By
introducing the ‘thesis advisory committee,’ graduate schools in life science also
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 269

institutionalized the already existing multi-supervision and let it function as part of the
quality control.

Integrated training for interdisciplinary knowledge production

The interdisciplinary nature of scientific knowledge production in life science brings up
the necessity of a more integrated training concept over the traditional organizational
structure at German universities. ‘Our programs represent the rapid development in
our research fields. For research in life science, we need an integrated training concept
which is a challenge for the traditional structure of research institutes, facilities and depart-
ments,’ the director of one school said. As a graduate school in the life sciences is both
interdepartmental and interdisciplinary, the concepts and procedures of research training
are designed directly for interdisciplinary research, without being confined by a single
institute or discipline. Interdisciplinarity is highlighted in the profile of these graduate
schools, in curriculum structure, and also in the supervision style as joint supervision
has become more and more common in this field.

A roof over a flat and dynamic structure of research organization

Over the past decades, along with the quick rise and rapid gain in status of different
research subjects, the traditional pyramid-like hierarchal structure in relevant faculties
of life science such as chemistry, physics, and biology has been gradually replaced by
a more flat structure in which each institute/department constitutes several parallel
research groups working on different subjects. The strong dependence on third-party
funding for research in these fields has also contributed to this structural transformation.
On the one hand, having been granted full control over research funds and the distri-
bution of research staff, the leaders of the smallest units have gained an authority
equal to chairpersons. On the other hand, as money and research staff are often only
temporarily focused on given research problems, in a manner Gibbons et al. described
as ‘context-driven’ (1994), the new structure of research organization is very flexible
and dynamic, which further weakens the affiliation of those research groups with the
departments/institutes.
Under this flat, dynamic structure, doctoral students in the life sciences are playing
double roles. On the one hand, they are research staff working in research groups; on
the other hand, they are also students registered at the universities, and need to be system-
atically trained. Graduate schools in life sciences are serving as a stable umbrella over the
flat, dynamic network of knowledge production, regulating the research training that takes
place inside each small research group with an integrated concept, a unified course plat-
form, and certain procedures of quality control, as well as additional administrative
support.

Funding and competition driven

In Germany as in many other countries, the life sciences are considered to be a high point
in the scientific landscape of the twenty-first century, and have gained strategic impor-
tance in national policy agenda, gathering a large research population as well as abundant
270 L. QIN

research funds. Over the last two decades, public and private funding in the life sciences
increased significantly in Germany (CHE 2009, E-7).
Highly dependent on third-party funding, scientists in life sciences are very active in
bidding for all kinds of funding, and normally react rapidly to changes in funding
policy and directions. Scientists in the life sciences at the two universities have been
very active in applying for the research training groups’ programmes funded by DFG
and other private foundations since the 1980s. When the Excellence Initiative was
announced in 2005, they responded immediately that funding programmes focusing on
research training are considered as important as research funding, because they can
help with recruiting and training research staff. The issue is also connected to prestige,
for as the director of one school said,
our university considers itself a competitive and creative institution; we also need more
money for research. When the Excellence Initiative was launched, we wanted to enhance
our reputation. For our professors, it would be unimaginable if our graduate school was
not selected.

Based on this consensus, the two graduate schools in life sciences have already become
formal structures for doctoral education in the faculty of biology and for relevant subjects
in the faculties of chemistry and physics at their universities.
In summary, the structuralization of doctoral training in the life sciences responds to
the Mode 2 knowledge production, which is interdisciplinary, context-based, problem-
focused, highly depends on funding, and is heterogeneous in organization (Gibbons
et al. 1994) in many ways. Graduate school serves as a roof over the heterogeneous organ-
izational structure of knowledge production, helping research teams to recruit expected
early-stage researchers from worldwide, equip them with cutting-edge knowledge and
transferrable skills, and regulate research training through its formal arrangement of
admission, evaluation, and external control of supervising.

The case of literature–cultural studies: structuralization for a

heterogeneous knowledge production
Starting with a doctoral proposal and a supervisor
As in economics, admission to the three programmes for literature and cultural studies
takes place annually, at the same time as the competitive selection. Applicants need to
show a good academic background and must meet certain language requirements.
However, unlike economics and life sciences, applicants for programmes in literature
and cultural studies need to submit a detailed proposal about their future doctoral disser-
tation. The proposal should not only prove a good knowledge foundation and research
ability, but must also show a strong correlation with the theoretical approach of the pro-
gramme. For example, in a graduate school for comparative literature, students are
expected to analyse and interpret texts, characters, symbols, and other literary elements
using a transcultural comparative approach, no matter whether their background is in
German studies, art history, media studies, or Arabic literature.
Knowledge in literature–cultural studies is discrete and subjective. It does not involve as
many concentrated research topics as in economics; neither does it have the certainty and
objectivity that life science knowledge has. When applying for doctoral programmes in
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 271

literature and cultural studies, students should demonstrate a certain connection in their
proposal between their own research interests, topics or theoretical perspectives and the
programme’s profile or the specific supervisor(s)’ research area. This can help them in
‘locating’ in a broad and divergent academic field. From an institutional perspective, start-
ing with a concrete research topic and a decent proposal is considered necessary for fin-
ishing the dissertation in a three-year duration, and for maximizing the academic support
that the student can get from the programme. Besides, when applying, an applicant should
have already found a supervisor and been ‘admitted’ by the supervisor who is usually a
faculty member of the programme.

A room for academic dialogue

All of the three programmes have various teaching elements in the form of lectures, semi-
nars, colloquia, and professional skills training courses, but are very different in terms of
their frequency and content. Among professors and students, there are different opinions
regarding the effectiveness and even necessity of these courses. The problem is, doctoral
students of the same programme are working on a wide range of themes that are not
strictly demarcated or delineated. Even though focusing on the same problem domain
or adopting the same theoretical approach, they are still far away from each other regard-
ing their specific focuses, culture contexts, analysis frameworks, or relevant historic
periods. It is very difficult to offer an ‘all-in-one’ curriculum that all students could
fully immerse themselves in and benefit from, especially when they are under time
pressures.
However, the professors and students interviewed agreed that a minimum of seminars
and colloquium are necessary in that they could offer an open space for academic dialogue
and discussion. The word ‘dialogue’ might best describe the style of academic communi-
cation in this field, where researchers are spread out sparsely across a wide range of topics,
as Becher and Trowler (2001, 105–108) describe as a ‘rural scenarios’ mode, in contrast to
an ‘urban’ mode, but can from time to time meet each other at the intersections – corre-
lations in themes, objects, theoretical perspectives, or culture contexts. ‘In the humanities
we do more non-formal cooperation, peer to peer, but not like a team working on a
specific problem as in the natural sciences. That is part of our culture,’ a director said.
From students’ perspective, a room for dialogue is also important for helping them over-
come the isolation which is quite common in doctoral study in humanities. Yet, the
tension between the needs for academic communication and the independent study as
a nature in this field is quite difficult to reconcile, especially when the elements taught
are obligatory, while time for the dissertation is very limited.

Relying on the old school master–apprenticeship model

In literature and cultural studies, there is no significant difference between a structured
programme and the traditional individual study in terms of supervising styles. Unlike
those in economics where students can get advise from different professors and peers
who are working on similar problems or using same methods, or in life science where stu-
dents work in a team/lab with a group of researchers, students in literature–cultural
studies are doing individual study alone and greatly relying on their supervisors’ advising.
272 L. QIN

Supervising style varies from person to person. Some students have more frequent inter-
action with their supervisors, while others are more isolated. Nonetheless, individual study
is valued very much in this field, and supervisor–student connection is considered as a key
factor.
The students interviewed also mentioned a ‘double identity’ – they are enrolled in an
interdisciplinary programme which requires courses participation and specific regulation.
Meanwhile, being closely connected with their supervisor who has her/his own institute
and apprentice circle, students are also required to participate in colloquium and other
academic activities at their supervisor’s institute. They are expected to conduct interdisci-
plinary research under the programme structure; but they are also embedded in a specific
subject/discipline. This double identity sometimes becomes a challenge in terms of how to
allocate working time and how to connect to the suitable peer group for academic
supporting.

Global perspective and institutionalization of interdisciplinary research

The three programmes in this study, along with many other structured doctoral pro-
grammes in humanities funded by DFG and the Excellence Initiative, are in the non-
classic fields of humanities, such as cultural studies and gender studies, or in the form
of regional studies such as North American Studies, African Studies, Muslim culture
and society, and East Asian Studies, which all involve interdisciplinary research. As huma-
nities knowledge includes lack of closed structure and is subject to contextual association
(Becher and Trowler 2001, 128), mutual penetration and reflection on the margins of
humanities disciplines are very common. However, in the emerging research fields such
as cultural studies, gender studies, and regional studies that cannot be easily categorized
into traditional disciplines, there is an increasing tendency of further institutionalization.
Long-term research projects have been launched and research centres have been estab-
lished in many higher education systems. Then, setting up specific doctoral programmes
could also be considered as an important step of this institutionalization process. As the
director of a doctoral programme for gender studies said, ‘in the past, our doctoral stu-
dents would say they are doing Ph.D. in sociology or literature or philosophy, according
to their disciplinary background. Now, many students say that they are doing Ph.D. in
gender studies.’
Knowledge production in humanities also has its own response to globalization. Unlike
economics and life sciences, which show a strong homogeneity globally regarding research
problems, research methods, and personnel mobility, the humanities tend to use reflectiv-
ity to zoom into specific areas such as ideology, gender, nation, ethnicity, race, and mass
media in global discourses, and initiative academic dialogues within a multi-culture
context. This may explain from another perspective why structured research training in
humanities favours interdisciplinary programmes with a ‘global perspective.’
In summary, the structuralization of doctoral education in literature and cultural
studies is more complex and heterogeneous. There is an irreconcilable tension between
the abstractive, subjective, culture-related nature of humanist knowledge and the idea of
structured doctoral training, which is normative, standardized, and cooperative. To a
large extent, research training in this field is still in a master–apprentice style and
values individual study to a very significant degree.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 273

Case studies show both commonalities and differences among structured programmes
in the three fields. Compared to the individual doctoral study, all these structured pro-
grammes have selected admission, a doctoral curriculum, room for academic communi-
cation, and formal procedure of quality control. However, each research field, based on
the characteristic of its knowledge production, has specific understanding about the
form and content of advanced study. Therefore, the concrete procedure and criteria for
admission, curriculum structure, supervising style, and quality control are diversified
among programmes in different fields. Although promoted by the same policy and
reform initiatives, each academic group follows its own motives to apply the structured
model, and each adopts its own pathway of approach.

Discussions and conclusion

These case studies indicate that structured doctoral programmes and graduate schools
have changed the mode of research training in Germany in many respects, and have
responded to the trends in contemporary scientific knowledge production. Comparing
them to the traditional individual doctoral study, structured programmes and graduate
schools meet the increasing demands for efficiency and accountability, by regulating
research training with formal rules and clear statement of responsibility, and raise the visi-
bility globally by setting up a comparable structure. Interdisciplinarity has been embodied
in the profiles of many programmes and schools, to better prepare students for the more
context-driven and problem-focused knowledge production in contemporary scientific
world. Moreover, many programmes were established by specific funding programmes,
and thus are under external evaluation to some extent. Although individual doctoral
study is still widespread, structured programmes are now shaping a more visible third
cycle in German higher education system, as the Bologna Process and Salzburg Principles
addressed.
On a smaller scale, however, cases from different fields show significant heterogeneity.
The common elements of structured research training, such as selective admission, doc-
toral curricula, quality control, academic communication, and regulated supervision, all
have specific implications for each academic field, indicating different characteristics of
knowledge and styles of knowledge production. The knowledge and skills that are essential
for scientific research in each field constitute the core content of advanced study, and
format the style of training. For example, the essential contents of advanced study in econ-
omics is a suit of solid knowledge, formal paradigm, and standard methodology which
cannot be well studied in general education. Thus standard curricula and intensive course-
work are key elements of structured doctoral programme in economics, while faculty and
students in the humanities have not yet reached a consensus on what to teach in their
courses, due to the discrete and subjective nature of humanistic knowledge. Besides,
case studies also indicate that the style of academic communication and the organizational
features of knowledge production in different fields are also relevant in shaping the struc-
tured doctoral education.
Based on a different understanding of structured research training, academics in differ-
ent fields have their own motives to establish doctoral programmes and graduate schools,
and taking different pathways to embed the new structure into the traditional system. In
this study, professors in economics would work together pragmatically to ‘assign’ the
274 L. QIN

responsibility of supervising by guaranteeing all students getting scholarships during the

first two years and funding those who are in the dissertation phase with assistant
vacancies, so that they could better control the quality of coursework. Students in litera-
ture–cultural studies have different roles in the programmes and in the institutes of their
supervisors. In life science, graduate school functions as a roof over the flat and network-
like structure of knowledge production, connecting doctoral candidates who work separ-
ately in small units.
This study brings up policy implications for reforms on doctoral education. First, dis-
ciplinary heterogeneity should be taken into consideration when launching reform
initiatives or designing funding programmes, allowing academics to create programmes
and practice innovative procedures according to the needs of their fields. Second,
reforms of doctoral education should be promoted along with other systematic
reforms. For example, to ensure the quality of supervision, personnel reforms like grant-
ing junior professors and principal investigators formal status as doctoral supervisors
and reviewers that some federal states in Germany have already been working on
should be encouraged. Other issues like the legal status of graduate schools should be
further discussed.
Nevertheless, the cases in this study are inherently limited. The three research fields
may not indicate all issues in other disciplines and fields. Thus, more quantitative and
qualitative inquiries are necessary. Interactions between changes in knowledge production
and reforms in research training have not been fully discussed in this paper, and need to be
examined in further studies.

Note
1. In this paper, doctoral education is referring to Ph.D. education, not including professional
doctoral programmes.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This work was supported by the Daimler und Benz Stiftung under the Ph.D. fellowship programme.

Notes on contributor
Lin Qin is a research associate at the Research Centre for International Comparative Education,
National Institute of Education Sciences (NIES), Beijing. Her research interests include higher edu-
cation policy, graduate education, and international students’ mobility from the perspective of
international comparison. She specifically focuses on higher education in Germany and has partici-
pated in several research projects of international comparison in science and higher education
policy. Before joining NIES, she studied as a visiting doctoral student at the Centre for Comparative
and International Education, Berlin Humboldt University for three years. Lin Qin received her
Ph.D. in Higher Education from Peking University.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION 275

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