Doctoral Education: More a Tool than a Passport

The main aim of this opinion article is to approach the issue of
doctoral education from a specific angle - not as a single path
to enter or maintain a career within academia, but mainly as
a tool to develop a solid research training and, regardless of
the sector in which PhD holders will be employed, to prepare
skilled professionals, able to creatively respond to unknown
complex work situations in an increasingly changing knowledge-
based society. We will not refer any scientific domain
because, in this case, the same rational could be applied to
different scientific and professional fields, from Law to Engineering
or Economy, from Medicine to Social Sciences.
Based on the claim that the main outcome of a PhD process
is the PhD degree holder, not the thesis, we present the project
of NOVA (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) Doctoral School
as a complementary training project in a wide range of transversal
professional and personal competences offered to the
PhD students of NOVA’s nine Academic Units (Schools and
Institutes).