Fascinating feature piece in the THE on the PhD thesis as a written document.The basic contrast being made is between the traditional 80 thousand word dissertation and a thesis which is a bundle of peer-reviewed and published papers. The latter is not at all far from the PhD by published work, and as it happens only last week I was part of the examination of just such a PhD.

There are a handful of practical issues here. How long does it take to write up a thesis (time which, it is assumed perhaps wrongly, is not spent in the lab doing real work). If the bundle comprises a set of multi-authored papers, how will the examiners discern the candidate’s contribution? Are examiners able to give as much attention to a long traditional thesis, as distinguished from six or eight papers? Given the lead time in publishing papers, might such an approach result in a delay in a candidate obtaining their doctorate? In some subjects where book publication is valued, the traditional thesis is the obvious practical choice for a young, would-be academic.

But these practical issues are, frankly, technicalities which well-written guidance for both students and supervisors would solve. Tougher are the big issues. First of all, is the writing of papers — and especially of shorter pieces that can be published quickly, and get out there having an impact — profoundly more relevant in the contemporary research environment? That is to say, all other things aside, is a traditional PhD deeply misaligned with how science works?

On the other hand, a PhD is and always has been about a large-scale project — conceiving of it, planning it, and executing it, and doing so with independence and resilience — so how does the set of individual papers demonstrate these important skills?

[Update, May 30th: This report confirms what has been anecdotally known for a while: that most PhDs will not not get permanent academic posts. This means that preparation for work in a research environment outside academia is all the more important, and thus also making the shape of a PhD thesis suitable.]

Just passing this Guardian advice piece on — it comprises ten top tips for winning research grant money. Actually, the first tip can be turned around: it seems to me our duty as senior researchers to bring our PhD students or Early Career researchers on board with our projects. Everybody wins.

Despite a bit of hyperbole — not surprising given Napolitano is a former Governor of Arizona, and possible Democratic contender for the White House in 2016 — this Washington Post piece is a thoughtful review of the current state of the American higher education system. She rejects as knee-jerk over-excitement the common claims that the US system is in crisis. However, she does see a worrying erosion of the state (both local and Federal) backing for public universities. The point being that both State and Federal governments are losing sight of the value of higher education, particularly in its traditional face-to-face, bricks and mortar guise. However, we need to notice that, she is writing very specifically about public research universities — Napolitano is currently President of the University of California, several campuses of which are joined on the THE World Rankings (for whatever that is worth), by Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas, just in the top 50.

Although recognising the disproportionate rise in tuition fees in most States, Napolitano prefers to see this simply as a general funding issue rather than as a specific social inequality issue — an idea she raises and then rejects too quickly for my taste.

There is also a recognition of the importance of basic research, by which I believe she means something other than headline-grabbing research. Every University would pursue and support the latter, if they could. But basic research — upon which the headline-grabbing variety depends absolutely — is dropping down the order of priorities. Indeed, one of the books she reviews here suggests separating the teaching and research units of Universities. Napolitano dismisses this idea — but of course endorses it in a different form precisely by having chosen to defend public research universities, rather than the system as a whole. What should be clear to anyone who understands the ‘economy’ of knowledge, is that 100 world-class scientists will not be able to pursue world-class work without a small army of scientists behind them doing the groundwork. Where that army is located is a different issue. And this is true, quite separately from the issue (which Napolitano pointedly does not discuss) of just how good an educator could be without some involvement in new knowledge-creation.

UPDATE: See similar and sympathetic remarks by the present of the North Carolina University system, Tom Ross, also locked in a real struggle with his State’s legislature. I wonder how he felt writing the phrase ‘just edging out Walmart’?

The House of Lords report entitled ‘Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future’ has just been published. It is extraordinarily wide-ranging, covering everything from infra-structure, to industry to education. With respect to higher education it makes several recommendations, all of which I find interesting.

First, the report takes a dim view of the recent decline in research funding to Universities (paras 151, 153) and also, and this is most interesting, clearly argues for a reversal of the concentration of research funding into a small number of institutions. This is the subject of a lengthy discussion (paras 240-269) in which it is recognised that high tech industries tend to grow up in clusters around Universities, but that the UK has only two examples of this (not surprisingly, in Cambridge and in London). They call for a greater role by the Research Funding Councils in reversing the trend, and assisting a number of regional strengths and clusters.

Second, the report takes a number of swipes at current education immigration policy, particular with respect to postgraduate research students, who should be seen as a resource rather than some kind of threat. (See specifically para. 152, but also throughout)

Third, the report suggests that one factor holding back the upskilling of the UK population is inflexibility in education provision, and Universities should be encouraged to offer more short, part-time courses. Fair enough. Utterly bizarre, then, was the omission of distance learning courses from the menu of recommendations to Universities (see paras 198-200), despite the fact that the OU is one of their case-studies.

This opinion piece in the Chronicle for Higher Education gives an overview of the problem of external engagement by researchers, in the US environment. Notice, though, that external engagement has a particular flavour here: it is not primarily about interesting the public or communicating findings or even encouraging regard for higher education. Rather, it is about well-informed commentary on the ‘bigger picture’ — in other words, about participation in the crafting of public policy.