Can you judge a book by its cover? Industrial doctorates in Portugal

Abstract

Purpose

Industrial doctorates have arisen in recent decades as a new form of doctoral education which has the potential to innovate the curriculum, among other things. Such programmes run in a number of countries including Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia or Italy. In Portugal, industrial doctorates are very recent. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether Portuguese industrial doctorates distinguish themselves through collaboration with industry, specifically in curriculum development and delivery, or if they replicate the traditional doctorates under a new name.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from self-assessment reports of existing programmes submitted to the Portuguese accreditation agency and interviews with programme leaders were analysed.

Findings

The findings suggest that despite the fact that there is space for improvement in the collaboration in curriculum development and delivery, this is nonetheless a dimension which differentiates industrial doctorates. Industrial doctorates can, therefore, be “judged by their cover” because they are indeed a new category of doctoral degrees.

Originality/value

Although circumscribed to the Portuguese context and focussed on a particular aspect of university–industry collaboration, the paper contributes to further knowledge on industrial doctorates, a topic on which research is still scarce.

Citation

Cardoso, S., Tavares, O. and Sin, C. (2019), "Can you judge a book by its cover? Industrial doctorates in Portugal", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 279-289. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-05-2018-0056