Joiman EC Project -Task Force 4 "Development and administration of Joint Programmes at Doctoral Level" The Joint European/International Doctorate on Social Representations and Communication: an experience anticipating the Bologna process (original) (raw)

In this article we present a case study of an experience anticipating the Bologna Process, inspired by the assumption that the European joint doctorate is a strategic tool for enhancing the attractiveness of the European Higher Education and Research Areas. We briefly introduce its distinctive features, defined as a jointly established multilateral degree awarded by at least three universities in three different European countries on the basis of inter-institutional agreements. These agreements establish the criteria for planning, implementing and monitoring an international network-based doctoral programme. The Joint European/International PhD on Social Representations and Communication is the first formally recognised European doctorate within the multiple institutional scenarios (European Commission: DG-Education and Culture and DG-Research; Ministries of Higher Education; Universities) established in 1993 under the Erasmus Inter-Universities Cooperation Programme. Since then, the original network of 13 European universities has grown to 22 universities, research institutes and enterprises in 15 countries around the world, opening the door to an increased transfer of knowledge, and expanding career opportunities for researchers. The Joint European/International PhD on Social Representations and Communication, provides advanced research training in a key supra-disciplinary area of social sciences that deals with the social construction of knowledge, its relation to socially situated practices and to traditional as well as new means of human interaction and communication. It has been selected by DG Education and Culture as an example of "best practices" for dissemination in higher education and is the core of the EU approved SoReCom THEmatic NETwork, a worldwide "network of networks" of academic, professional research and commercial institutions interested in this area of social psychology. We describe its innovative curriculum, which takes full advantage of modern communication technologies to build a worldwide virtual campus. Its well-tested didactic formula and training structure include: tutoring and co-tutoring triadic system (multiple supervision), annual International Summer School and three annual International Lab Meetings (winter, spring and summer sessions), face-to-face individual and small group mentoring activities integrated with an open learning system where tutors have on-line access for didactic activities and for monitoring trainees' progress; structured individual and collective international mobility of trainees and teaching staff; and learning by doing in academic and non-academic settings. The Joint European/International PhD on Social Representations and Communication guarantees: a) mutual recognition of the degree in addition to institutional recognition from the EC, universities, and ministries; b) joint governance model for promotion of the programme and dissemination, on-line unified server for application and registration, recruitment of applicants, fee policy and administrative management, common web platform and integrated infrastructure, training structure, international mobility, intellectual property rights, services policy, obligations and rights of both teaching staff and doctoral research trainees, assessment and quality assurance, awarding of degrees; c) training in research and transferable skills in an international environment; d) multiple supervision; e) training assessment; f) physical and virtual international mobility for research trainees and professors; g) intensive didactic stages in multilingual settings; h) expanded networking opportunities via the integrated SoReCom THEmatic NETwork; i) enhanced career prospects in and outside academic contexts.