The 4Cs as a Process and a Product in Doctoral Education

Doctoral education is not only the pinnacle of the higher education system but is also the researchers' source nowadays. To achieve the Ph.D. profile (Dublin descriptors framework, 2004), scientific skills are not the only skills that must be developed during the doctoral journey. On the one hand, during the doctorate, a Ph.D. student must develop scientific skills, be trained with technical and theoretical knowledge, develop new knowledge, and be innovative and original, allowing scientific success and the development of science. On the other hand, it must develop soft skills as it should be capable of issuing knowledge in different contexts, but also working with others in different work team contexts (collaborating and/or cooperating) and the awareness of managing emotions and professional relations. During this development, the academic identity is constructed and the integration into the academy and a sense of belonging to a community of practices appears. At NOVA Lisbon University, each year rewards a person inside the university who disseminates innovative practices and contributes to the development of a culture of organizational innovation. In this context, the focus of the present research is the Learning and Innovation Skills of the 21st-century skills proposed by "The Partnership for the 21st Century". This quantitative research aims to capture the Ph.D. students' perception regarding the development of Learning and Innovation Skills (creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking) during the doctorate. This paper draws on the data collected among Ph.D. students in a Portuguese higher education, using a survey, with close questions applied, in July 2022. The results show that Ph.D. students have a positive perception of the development of all these four skills. Nevertheless, they feel less confident in their ability to use critical thinking.