Barnett Joey V, Harris Robert A, Mulvany Michael J
Department of Pharmacology Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Nashville Tennessee.
Department Of Clinical Neurosciences Karolinska Institutet Stockholm Sweden.
FEBS Open Bio. 2017 Sep 8;7(10):1444-1452. doi: 10.1002/2211-5463.12305. eCollection 2017 Oct.
The PhD degree was established in Berlin 200 years ago and has since spread across the whole world. While there is general agreement that the degree is awarded in recognition of successfully completed research training, there have been significant differences in the way doctoral training programs have developed in particular countries. There is, however, a clear global tendency to follow the programs currently used either in the United States or in Europe. To determine more clearly how US and European PhD programs are both similar and different, we have used a validated questionnaire to analyze biomedical PhD programs in four representative institutions at Vanderbilt University, University of Manitoba, Karolinska Institutet, and Graz Medical University. The analysis is based on 63 detailed questions concerning the research environment, outcomes, admission criteria, content of programs, mentoring (or supervising), the PhD thesis, assessment of the thesis, and PhD school structure. The results reveal that while there is considerable overlap in the aims and content of PhD programs, there are also considerable differences regarding the structure of PhD programs, mentoring and assessment of PhD theses. These differences are analyzed in detail in order to provide a foundation for discussion of their relative advantages and disadvantages, with a view to providing a platform for discussion of best practices. The results will be of importance in the continued development of global discussion about development of doctoral training.
博士学位于200年前在柏林设立，此后便传播到了全世界。虽然人们普遍认为授予该学位是为了认可成功完成的研究训练，但不同国家的博士培养项目发展方式存在显著差异。然而，目前全球明显倾向于采用美国或欧洲现行的项目模式。为了更清楚地确定美国和欧洲的博士项目有哪些异同，我们使用了一份经过验证的问卷，对范德堡大学、曼尼托巴大学、卡罗琳斯卡学院和格拉茨医科大学这四所具有代表性机构的生物医学博士项目进行了分析。该分析基于63个详细问题，内容涉及研究环境、成果、录取标准、项目内容、指导（或监督）、博士论文、论文评估以及博士学院结构。结果显示，虽然博士项目的目标和内容有相当多的重叠之处，但在博士项目结构、博士论文的指导和评估方面也存在相当大的差异。我们对这些差异进行了详细分析，以便为讨论它们的相对优缺点奠定基础，从而提供一个讨论最佳实践的平台。这些结果对于全球关于博士培养发展的持续讨论的进一步开展具有重要意义。
