Launch of the DocEnhance project: skills training in PhD programmes
Responding to the need of bridging the skills gap between research employment in academia and beyond for the benefit of the society, the DocEnhance project was launched on January 9th, 2020 in Tromsø, Norway.
The 3-year project entitled “Enhancing skills intelligence and integration into existing PhD programmes by providing transferable skills training through an open online platform”, receives funding from the European Union`s Horizon 2020 Science with and for Society programme (grant agreement no. 872483).
Hanne Risan Johnsen, project coordinator, explains: “By building a diverse network of academic and non-academic actors and by offering open access transferable skills training in PhD education, DocEnhance aims to increase intersectoral mobility for PhD candidates. Our joint approach will improve communication and increase contact points between industry and academia”.
Invest in skills to empower researchers to work more entrepreneurial and intersectoral
DocEnhance addresses doctoral candidates and early career researchers and focuses on transferable skills, such as interpersonal, capacity or business skills, as these skills facilitate the transition into employment and are widely applicable, regardless of scientific field and chosen career path.
Its overall objective is to build the DocEnhance network and online platform, develop and integrate transferable skills training into PhD education in Europe, and increase interaction with the non-academic sector. Through a co-creation approach, all project outputs will be piloted among several European universities for proof-of-concept and will be provided as freely available Open Educational Resources through an online platform, the DocEnhance Platform. This platform will function as an access point for transferable skills intelligence and training in research education for researchers, as well as a community and networking site, designed to live beyond the project lifetime.
A well-versed consortium
DocEnhance builds on a large, diverse and experienced consortium of 19 partners from 15 European countries, coordinated by UiT the Arctic University of Norway. It comprises universities, academic organisations, organisations with expertise in career transition and non-academic collaboration, SMEs within PhD training, innovation and open science. A project partner from Africa represents the interests of non-European countries. Additionally, DocEnhance cooperates with several existing EU projects and other initiatives to achieve its goals.
Partners
- UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Norway)
- All Digital AISBL (Belgium)
- University of Chemistry and Technology Prague (Czech Republic)
- Tampere University (Finland)
- European Science Foundation (France)
- Tree of Science (France)
- Technical University of Munich – Graduate School (Germany)
- University of Ghana (Ghana)
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
- European University Foundation (Luxembourg)
- Maastricht University (The Netherlands)
- Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (Norway)
- NOVA University Lisbon (Portugal)
- Matej Bel University (Slovakia)
- Fundación Universidad-Empresa (Spain)
- University of Alcalá (Spain)
- Karlstad University (Sweden)
- InnoEXC GmbH (Switzerland)
- Adecco Group (Switzerland)
Partners of DocEnhance project during the kick-off meeting in Tromsø Foto: Jonatan Ottesen/UiT
- DocEnhance Final EventDocEnhance's final event
- Join the CEN Workshop on ‘Good practice for implementation of a career-tracking survey for post-graduates!The purpose of this workshop is to create consensus-based guidelines with recommendations to implement career-tracking surveys of PhD holders.
- DocEnhance Final EventRegister to DocEnhance's final event!
- DocEnhance Annual Meeting 202221 June 2022, DocEnhance partners had the pleasure to meet in person for the project’s annual meeting in Manchester. Bärbel Tress from Tress Academic and project Advisory Board member opened the session with a keynote talk on “Increasing the take-up and impact of skills courses”. Encouraging students’ or graduates’ participation to courses requires efforts on … Read more
- DocEnhance Stakeholder Validation WorkshopWhen: 22 June 2022, 9:00 – 11:00 CET Where: University of Manchester, UK (University Place, 176 Oxford Road) The DocEnhance project aims to enhance skills intelligence and integration into existing PhD programmes in Europe, and to increase interaction and exposure to the non-academic sector. To achieve this, the project is developing a series of transferable skills … Read more