The 9th Seminar of the EUA-CDE on Doctoral supervision, practices and responsibilities, held in the Netherlands saw the URV’s Postgraduate and Doctoral School playing a leading role in the session entitled Engaging and training supervisors, which discussed the process of professionalising doctoral supervision

The 9th Seminar of the EUA-CDE, this year under the title Doctoral supervision, practices and responsibilities, took place in Delft (Netherlands) on the 20 and 21 of January. During the closing session, the main focus was the process of professionalising doctoral supervision that has been implemented by the URV’s Postgraduate and Doctoral School during the last 3 years. Under the title Engaging and Training Supervisors, the session consisted of a presentation of the experiences of three individuals involved in this process, namely the course trainer, a supervisor who has undergone the training sessions and a doctoral student.

The first speaker was Professor Helmut Brentel (from the Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany) who has trained doctoral supervisors at the URV since the beginning of the programme and who has also helped to train the present group of trainers at the URV. During his talk, Professor Brentel outlined his vision for such training. Next, Professor Ercilia García from the Department of Business Management related the experiences of a supervisor who had been through the training process. In particular, she emphasised how it had changed the whole manner in which she perceived and conducted doctoral supervision. Finally, the session was closed by Dr Alexandra Samper, who did her doctoral degree at the URV under the supervision of Professor García. As a doctoral student, she stated that Professor García’s attendance on the course had had a significant and positive effect on their relationship.

The URV continues to provide training that aims to professionalise doctoral supervision and now has a team of trainers who were initially trained under the guidance of professor Brentel, namely Dr Ercilia García and Dr Mireia Valverde from the Department of Business Management, and Dr Mar Reguero and Dr Joan J. Carvajal from the Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry. This group taught the course in Training for the Professionalisation of the Doctoral Supervision to 20 professors at the URV on 13 and 14 January. Prior to this they also taught the course in Cali (Colombia) last September to 36 professors from 25 universities and 10 countries in South America.

The EUA-CDE will hold their next annual meeting at the URV in Tarragona on 16 and 17 June.