Hilligje van’t Land, Director, Membership and Programme Development, IAU
There is a dire need for real phds, in Africa or elsewhere, virtual or not.
There also is a need to collaborate, to innovate in the field of how to foster brand new research and how to support the new research done by PhD students.
Added to that, there is a need for research networks: it is important to note that supervision is also part of being a network.
A very important challenge is how to provide technical support, how to bring into research ethical dimensions, or how to lead the administrative changes that have to accompany the changes in research and in supervision.
But most important of all, beyond theories, we have to see how to put e-supervision into practice, to make it happen.
Marta Aymerich, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
One of the keys of research and PhD is supervision. It is not a trivial matter and thus needs being addressed properly.
ICTs have provided very powerful in knowledge related tasks. We thus need to leverage the power of ICTs in research in general and in supervision in particular.
We need to discuss the structures in place for doctoral education.
Olive Mugenda, Vice-Chancellor, Kenyatta University (KU), Kenya
There is a dire need for research and for PhDs.
We especially need to train the trainers, people that will earn their own PhDs so that they can supervise/train others.
The whole process needs to be accountable, in general terms of performance, but especially in terms of ensuring quality.
We can’t keep the old model of supervision, we have to open up supervision.
We have to change paradigm, get out of old way of thinking and foster e-supervision.
Jaume Casals, Vice-Chancellor, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in representation of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP)
PhDs are the jewel of the crown, thus we have to harvest them with care.
