Facilitating Doctoral Education in Cross-disciplinary Milieus : Experiences from PhD-candidates

Cross-disciplinarity shapes much research today and many PhD candidates areengaged in this research. The doctoral education is a formative phase in a scientist’sintellectual development. Despite a large body of research about cross-disciplinarity,less attention has focused on how cross-disciplinarity shapes doctoral education.This report explores the organisation of doctoral education in four cross-disciplinaryresearch milieus and the experiences of 14 PhD candidates enrolled in these milieus.One key finding is that PhD candidates are more comfortable when their educationhas involved meta-communication about conceptual approaches and experiencesof conducting cross-disciplinary research. This calls for research milieus’ providingdoctoral education in cross-disciplinary settings to take a deliberative approach.This will both benefit the PhD candidates and the research milieus, and is centralin the socialisation process of the next cadre of researchers and for the future ofcross-disciplinary research