PhD students draw on their specialised and advanced skills to make a vital contribution to Australian research. Putting them on an income that’s below the poverty line doesn’t reflect their value.
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Articles on PhD students
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COVID-19 lockdowns have kept researchers from their labs and libraries and delayed projects. What can be done to reduce the likely impacts?
When colleges and universities provide better funding for Ph.D. students, more students – especially students of color – apply.
A PhD isn’t a golden ticket to success, but it is a brilliant opportunity to “flex your academic muscles and learn a lot about yourself”.
Life for graduate students can be hard work and often isolating, and COVID-19 piled on the pressures. That’s when having an academic leader and program dedicated to supporting them proved its worth.
The realities of the job market mean most PhD students no longer work alongside people whose professional paths they will follow. Universities must do more to support non-academic mentorships.
There is no pleasure without pain in the doctoral journey, but with the right frame of mind and supportive supervisors, the joys certainly outweigh the suffering.
With the support of universities, PhD graduates working beyond the academy could bring their knowhow into PhD seminars or classrooms to help current students expand their career horizons.
As I found, academics engaging in fieldwork research are in a particularly vulnerable position.
PhD students can’t wait for universities and governments to reconcile the demands for a more educated workforce and a scarcity of academic jobs – they should plan their own careers.
Australia’s top scientist Alan Finkel says too many poor quality research papers are being published in Australia, and the system may inadvertently encourage academics to behave badly.
Mindfulness exercises can help PhD students manage the stress of completing their thesis.
Completion rates for PhD courses are very low. Here are some things students, supervisors and universities can do to help support these students through to completion.
There’s strong evidence that, all things being equal, leading South African universities provide “world class” training at PhD level.
If researchers want to make an impact on public health they can’t just have a thorough grounding in their own discipline.
There are currently far too few vacant academic jobs in Australia each year to employ all our PhD students. It’s time to rethink the training of doctoral students.
Many people are left floundering when they try to get working on their PhDs. In Africa, this is often because the skills they need haven’t been developed earlier in their academic careers.
With 70 percent adjunct faculty, who work on a semester-to-semester basis, the current system is not helping students. What can replace the traditional tenure system?
A new review of research training in Australia calls for transferable skills to be central to the training of PhD students.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne
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Emeritus Professor, Environmental Science, James Cook University
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Senior Lecturer, University of Tasmania
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Australia’s Chief Scientist, Office of the Chief Scientist
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Dean of Research (Creative), University of South Australia
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Deputy Dean (Research), School of Education & the Arts, CQUniversity Australia
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Emeritus Professor, Creative Industries, CQUniversity Australia
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Graduate Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, UNSW Sydney
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Professsor of Public Health; Co-Director Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa; Panel Member, Private Healthcare Market Inquiry, University of the Witwatersrand
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Director, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland
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Associate Dean Learning and Teaching, College of Science & Engineering, James Cook University
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PhD Student, University of Southern California
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Professor of Higher Edcuation, University of Southern California
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Associate Professor of Parasitology and Entomology, St Paul's University
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Professor of Education & Policy, Boston College
