Maresi Nerad - US grants

The proposal seeks to support a synthesis workshop to address a critical issue facing STEM graduate education - the forces and forms of change in doctoral education, worldwide. The synthesis project is part of a multi-year project to establish an international network of leaders in doctoral education research and innovation to synthesize existing research and knowledge in five critical dimensions of globalization in doctoral education. They are: (1) the impacts of globalization in labor markets on doctoral education; (2) the problem of tensions between national interests and globalized science; (3) the competencies of PhD holders worldwide; (4) the usefulness of existing data for evaluation of doctoral education cross-nationally, and (5) the problem of evaluation and quality assurance as doctoral education globalizes.

Now is a moment of openness to innovation in STEM PhD education around the world which holds enormous potential for inventing a better, future-oriented PhD. To realize this potential, we need to understand the relationship of national and local policy actors to globalizing and internationalizing forces and the outcomes of current reforms in doctoral education. To help meet this need, the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington, Seattle, with support from NSF, created a unique international network of doctoral education researchers and policy makers, the Forces and Forms of Change in Doctoral Education Worldwide (F&F) network. Based on two previous NSF-supported research collaborations, F&F network members have identified three critical topics in the globalization of science doctoral education which they are committed to investigating: (1) internationalization and inequality in intellectual capital, (2) diversity in doctoral education, and (3) preserving the role in doctoral education of intellectual risk-taking (i.e., the capacity to conduct research outside the mainstream or with uncertain outcomes). This proposal requests support for a synthesis research project which will build on the expertise and prior research collaborations of the F&F network to generate policies for addressing these three critical issues. The goal is to move beyond the national context for understanding these issues and to generate policy tools for shaping science PhD programs to address these issues within the context of the emerging, global system of STEM doctoral education.
Support is requested for research, centralization of information on PhD education internationally through a web-based information hub, planning and coordinating a meeting of participating researchers (including travel support for U.S. scholars), involvement of younger scholars (i.e., a small training component) and dissemination of research findings and research-based policy recommendations through print and online media, targeting doctoral education policy audiences, including researchers, graduate deans, funding agencies, and the general higher education public (e.g., insidehighered.com and Chronicle of Higher Education).
The Intellectual Merits
The F&F network's research agenda will advance knowledge in the area of globalization in doctoral education. This project focuses particularly on the international policy context for expansion and innovation in STEM PhD programs. Resulting research papers will contribute to understanding of individuals and organizations who influence, advocate, and implement policy reform in PhD programs around the world and the relationship of national and local actors to globalizing and internationalizing forces in doctoral education. Building on this knowledge, the project will generate policy recommendations addressing the role of doctoral education in the unequal distribution of intellectual capital, diversity in PhD education, and the role of intellectual risk-taking in doctoral education.
The Broader Impacts of Proposed Activity
This project is designed to promote broader impacts by creating vehicles for centralization and dissemination of research on doctoral education worldwide, fostering international connections among doctoral education researchers and policy makers, and stimulating further research on critical issues in PhD education. CIRGE will make the policy-relevant knowledge that exists in the F&F network available to U.S. audiences through publications, presentations and the CIRGE-managed web-based information hub. The project links diversity and excellence in STEM PhD education in a novel way by developing global (or at least international) perspectives on both issues as two sides of the same coin. The project includes graduate students and early-career scholars. It will generate policy tools for improving doctoral education.

This project will support a one and one-half day workshop to enhance understanding of the impact of international research experiences for U.S. students and postdoctoral researchers in science and engineering fields. Until now, we have only limited knowledge of the impacts of these experiences. This workshop should result in parameters for a research agenda that will produce new knowledge about them. Questions addressed will include: (1) What are the outcomes of international exchanges? (2) What do we know about the effectiveness of collaborations and exchange programs? (3) What factors define the types of exchanges and shape the outcomes? (4)What methods and tools exist? Do we need new ones? Included in the workshop will be researchers, practitioners, doctoral students and postdocs from the U.S. and abroad.

This workshop will help define what types of research questions can be asked and what methodologies can be used to assess the impact of international research experiences for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in science and engineering fields. The results of research arising from this agenda will help members of the science, engineering, and education communities to design and administer more effective and successful research programs for students and postdoctoral researchers.